Shifting gears from budgets to burnouts

Creston City Clerk Lisa Williamson lives her summers seven seconds at a time. She sits in her original red 1967 Ford Fairlane, engine roaring, as she waits for her light to turn green.

For Williamson, the last 11 years of drag racing have been the culmination of a lifetime of wanting to get into the sport. “I basically fell in love with the idea of it when I was 15. I loved watching it. It was fast and loud,” she said. “But it never went anywhere.”

That is until 11 years ago when she and her husband Joe bought her car. He was just going to build it up a little bit to drive around. “I always told him, if you build it, I’ll drive it.” He and his cousin started building it, and it got bigger than he was planning for it to just drive around town. “So we took it down to the track,” she said.

Joe didn’t just stop at building the car, he also serves as her crew chief. He does her tune ups and makes sure everything is running right.

Drag racing isn’t like the heads up racing you see in “Street Outlaws” or “Fast and Furious.” Williamson competes in bracket racing - a form of drag racing in which drivers select the amount of seconds they think they will run the 1/8 mile in.

“You’re actually racing against yourself even though you have an opponent,” Williamson said.

Winning isn’t just about crossing the line first. It’s also about your reaction time at the light, referred to as “cutting a good light,” and not going over your given time, termed “breaking out.”

In the class Williamson runs in, she can’t go faster than 7.5 seconds. The drivers’ start times depend on their time selected. If she designates a time of 7.60 seconds and her opponent chooses 7.80 seconds, they will start 0.20 seconds before her. The goal is to come closest to your selected time.

“There are so many variables to take into consideration,” she said.

The benefit of bracket racing is the emphasis on consistency. This makes the racing more about driver skill and less about the amount of money put into the vehicle.

Eddyville Raceway Park in Oskaloosa is Williamsons’ “home track.” The raceway is an International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) sanctioned track.

The track works on a point system to qualify for division finals and beyond. Racers must be a member of IHRA to get to those events.

Every year, Williamson said she and her best friend go to Topeka, Kansas, to watch the big dogs race at Nationals. She got to go to Topeka herself as a racer at the divison finals several times over the last decade.

While loud engines, squealing tires and custom motors may seem like a man’s world, drag racing is one of the most female-friendly mainstream sports.

“There are boatloads of women racers,” Williamson said.

For starters, women compete head to head with men without any gender-based handicaps. In fact, women have some physical advantages over men in the sport.

In some classes, the car plus the driver must weigh below a certain amount. With women weighing less than men on average, this gives them the ability to distribute weight where it will most help speed.

For Williamson, it’s not all about the technicalities and getting to Nationals. Her favorite parts are simple - burnouts and stomping her foot down on the pedal.

She has already completed her first race of the season on May 7 where she clocked her fastest time ever - 7.16 seconds. “The car ran way faster than anticipated,” Williamson said.

This season, she’s not in the points. “My goal is to get a better handle on my reaction times,” she said. She already felt a little better with her timing at her first race.

Though the car is running quick, she’s looking to stay in her current class instead of doing the necessary safety upgrades to jump a class.

She estimates she will race 15 to 20 times before the season ends in September. She has races lined up for the next two weekends.

“It’s one of my favorite things to do,” Williamson said. It’s not just about the racing, but also the people she has met throughout her experience.

“They are the best family to be around. If you’re in trouble, they come help you,” she said. “It’s a friendly, helpful and loving community.”