By Ryan C. Christiansen
Long before Haley Heintzman could get her driver’s license, and only a couple of years after taking the training wheels off her bicycle, her father began encouraging her to get behind the wheel to drive at highway speeds.
Scott Heintzman was doing what any other father might do on a weekend afternoon: play with his kid. However, instead of tossing a football, playing catch with a baseball, kicking a soccer ball, or passing a puck, Heintzman began teaching his daughter how to race dragsters.
It’s in his blood.
The co-owner of Progressive Auto Refinishers, Inc., of Fargo, Heintzman began drag racing 31 years ago when he was 16. A Fargo native, he started racing at Interstate Dragways, now Top End Dragways, near Sabin, Minn. Back then, highschoolers raced to earn points for their schools, and had to wait until they had their driver’s licenses to race. “I remember being 15 with no driver’s license and having to sit there all day from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. just watching others race,” Heintzman said.
When he started racing his 1973 Chevrolet Camaro in Sabin, Heintzman clocked the quarter-mile in 16 seconds. A couple of engines and three decades later, he clears the track in 12.5 seconds at 108 miles per hour.
Soon Haley, too, now 15, and a junior next year at Davies High School will get a chance to climb into daddy’s Camaro for a run into the sun. Until then, however, she’ll continue to race in the NHRA Jr. Drag Racing League at top speeds of less than 90 miles per hour.
It’s a coming-of-age story for a girl who was raised at the drag strip. “We scheduled our wedding around drag racing,” Heintzman said of his nuptials with wife, Kari. “Our daughter was born in July, and the only day of racing that I missed was the day when she was born. At one week old she was in the motorhome at the drag strip. She grew up there.”
Junior Drag Racing offers kids 8 to 17 the opportunity to race miniature copies of Top Fuel dragsters at NHRA member tracks throughout the U.S. and Canada. As Jr. Dragsters, kids climb behind the wheel of a five-horsepower, single-cylinder-engine-powered “rail” style dragster to rocket down eighth-mile tracks in 12.90 to 7.90 seconds or slower, depending on age, to earn points toward track championships in age groups. Points leaders move on to national conference finals, where they race for college scholarships.
Just like their Top Fuel counterparts, Jr. Dragsters must be NHRA members and put safety first, using standard equipment, including roll cages, neck collars, helmets, fire suits, and more. “The tracks like to promote Jr. Dragsters,” Heintzman said, “because as track operators, they know it’s their future. There’s hardly a kid that doesn’t continue to race after getting out of a Jr. Dragster.”
Things are a lot different than when he was a kid. “I couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license so that I could race,” Heintzman said, “and then I had to learn from scratch. When these kids get their driver’s licenses and hop out of their Jr. Dragsters, they’re like assassins for older drivers.”
The Heintzmans travel to Grove Creek Raceway near Grove City, Minn., and to Brainerd International Raceway near Brainerd, Minn., to race. Their home track, however, is Top End Dragways, where as many as a dozen kids race on a regular basis, Heintzman said.
Interstate Dragways became Top End Dragways in 2011 when the new owner, Charlie McCann, took over after drag racing motorcycles there for several years. “It’s a pretty big commitment,” McCann said of the track. He spends most of the summer there getting ready for weekly races. Preparations include cleaning up the yard to make the grounds, restrooms, and concessions areas presentable, and making sure the electronics are working, “but keeping the track clean is the most important part,” he said, just getting dirt and dust off the cement and asphalt, and putting down a thin layer of rubber and traction compound.
During the off-season, McCann said he keeps busy scheduling his races, including 12 bracket weekends and five Street Legal events, which involves keeping abreast of schedules in Grove City and Brainerd, and also Oahe Speedway in Pierre, S.D. “When they have their big races, I try not to schedule a big race here,” he said, “because I don’t want racers to have to choose and for both tracks to have a marginal day.” McCann said he gets to meet with other track owners at NHRA Division 5 annual meetings in Kansas City, Mo.
“Charlie has gotten thrown to the wolves learning all of this,” Heintzman said, “but he has gained the racer’s respect.”
Maybe that’s because McCann understands racers. “The one thing I know to be true about drag racing,” he said, “is that you either love it or you hate it, and if you love it, it takes only one pass and you’re hooked. After one pass as a racer, I went home looking for parts.”
McCann said the best part about race day is “when we start getting down toward the final rounds in all of the classes,” he said, “to the semi-finalists and to the runner-ups, and the track is working real well from the heat of all the races, and just watching cars launch and making faster passes. For the spectators, it’s loud, even when some of the cars are just idling, and when they leave the starting line, they can feel the ground shake. It’s a pretty good thrill.”
The pits at Top End Dragways are open to spectators, McCann said, and so anyone who might be interested in learning more can walk down pit row and talk to the racers. It’s this openness, he said, that has bonded the drag racing community into one big family. “When a vehicle breaks,” he said, “the word gets around, and you’ll see five or six racers running to find parts to help the other guy finish his race.”
The competition is friendly, too, Heintzman said, with the old guys debating who has made more passes down the track, but when the helmet goes on, things change. “I teach my daughter that when the helmet goes on, you have no friends.” Heintzman said. “That’s true for any class of dragsters.”
Races are held both Saturday and Sunday, and on Saturday night after the last race is run, and after the noise dies down, drag racers young and old can be seen hanging out together in the campground. “First everyone is racing, and then everyone is playing,” Heintzman said. “The kids might be in the motorhome playing their XBOX or on Facebook texting their drag racing friends down in Iowa to see how they did.” After the sun goes down, they sit together around the bonfire. “It looks just like a campground at the lakes,” Heintzman said. “We have a pretty good lock-stock group of people here.”
Just like in any other sport, Jr. Dragsters and their families stick together, Heintzman said. “It’s our version of hockey or soccer, and I can’t speak enough about the pride that a father has when his child wins a race,” he said. “My daughter has a shelf full of trophies, and racing builds her self-esteem. When she’s in her car, she’s in charge, and she’s in her happy place. When other kids get good at football or soccer or hockey, it’s the same kind of thing.”
The sport helps with discipline, too. Heintzman said Jr. Dragster parents use the Disney Channel made-for-TV movie Right on Track as a role model for the kids. The film is based on the lives of two sisters, Erica and Courtney Enders, who grew up watching their father race, and their years as Jr. Dragsters.
“Kids use that film as motivation,” Heintzman said, “and the most painful thing I’ve had to do was to make my daughter sit out the season opener for disciplinary reasons. When she returned to racing, her friends were like, ‘Where were you?’ It’s kind of like missing a Little League game and having to explain it to your coach.”
Heintzman said he hasn’t raced much himself since Haley began racing eight years ago. “Once my daughter got involved,” he said, “I just had more fun seeing her race and win. I have no problem stepping back.”
When Haley turns 16 in July, Heintzman said, she plans to race the Pontiac Grand Am that he bought for her. In a couple of years, however, Haley will be off to college. “It’s always a sad moment when a kid has their last pass down the track,” Heintzman said. “We have a lot of good memories of dads helping dads and boys and girls becoming friends.”
Heintzman knows, however, that with Jr. Dragsters, there will be future generations of racers to cheer on. “We talk about pushing our walkers and our wheelchairs up to the fence to watch our grandkids race,” he said.