Biggest weekend of season at drag strip

By Ryan McCracken on July 27, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

The Wallys are up for grabs this weekend at the Medicine Hat Drag Strip.

The Medicine Hat Drag Racing Association is set to host its annual stop in the National Hot Rod Association Northwest National Open Series today through Sunday with more than 200 racers from across Western Canada and the United States converging on the local strip to battle for the coveted Wally Trophies — named in honour of NHRA founder Wally Parks.

“You can only get Wallys at certain events, so people do come for the Wallys, and of course the National Open points,” said MHDRA president Dave Toth. “There will be a lot of different cars here that most people won’t see an average weekend. It’s going to be very competitive racing, I have a feeling it should be good.”

Toth added the three-day event will feature vehicles in nearly a dozen classes with plenty of local vying for Wallys and points.

“We’ve got junior dragsters, junior street, sportsman, pro, super pro, sportsman motorcycle. We’ve got super quick, super stock, super gas, super comp, super street,” said Toth. “We go from junior dragsters, which can go as slow as 30 or 40 miles an hour, all the way up to 200 miles an hour in your super quick cars.”

The forecast for the weekend has temperatures hovering just below the 30-degree mark, which Toth says is far more ideal for drag racing than the heat seen by Hatters in recent weeks.

“The hotter it gets, the higher your (corrected altitude) goes up,” said Toth. “If it’s 35 above out, we could be racing at a corrected altitude of 5,000-plus feet. So the higher your altitude is, the less horsepower you make and the slower you go.”

Gates open tonight at 5 p.m. with racing at 7 p.m. The action continues Saturday with gates at 8 a.m., time trials at noon and racing at 4 p.m. The gates will open for Sunday’s final race day at 8 a.m., with racing slated to get underway at 1 p.m.

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