Rachel and the Randy Meyer Racing Team competed at the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series regional event in Indianapolis, Indiana this past weekend and walked away with the top qualifier and runner-up finish after defeating Jared Dreher and Chris Demke in eliminations in her new Menards/Dot’s Pretzels dragster built by Copeland Race Cars.
“I love the new A/Fuel car,” said Rachel. “I figured it would take us a while to figure out a tune up the car likes, but it just clicked from the first pass we made a month ago in Chicago. This car has potential to be in the winner circle at almost every race.
“The only reason we did not make it past first round at the Chicago national is due to getting out ran by the only car that was faster than us that whole session. First round loss at Topeka was due to miscommunication as to why I couldn’t get the car to back up, but we have taken the proper actions to ensure that will not happen again. It helps that this car is new, she doesn’t have a lot of passes on her yet, or experienced any major tires shake or tire smoke, so she is still in great condition. Chase Copeland did a phenomenal job building the chassis and our lead mechanic Adrain Long did a great job getting the motor ready for this car, as well as helping my dad tie up all the loose ends to get the car ready for this year. I’m excited to see how the rest of the season goes, and hopefully take down my sister Megan for the regional title.
Rachel clinched the number one qualifying position only by 2 MPH as her and Josh Hart ran identical 5.309 ET passes in qualifying, setting her up against Jared Dreher for the opening round of eliminations.
“I knew I had to be on my game again Jared Dreher; he probably has the best average reaction time in our class. He ended up having to pedal the car and we flew down the track running a 5.317 ET to his 5.802 ET. For second round I had Chris Demke who was the last blown car left. Josh and Will had just ran in front of us and Josh won on a small hole shot, so in my head I told myself ‘Rachel, you better get him on the tree, you’re not losing this race on a hole shot.’ I had cut a 20 light to his 35 and ran a 5.354 ET to his 5.378 ET which was low of the round. If I would have had my normal 60-70 light I would have lost that race.
“I expected going up against Josh in the final round was not going to be easy, but we were going to give it our all. I was not as good on the tree as I would have liked to be and about half track the car started to shake. When I went to pedal, the car jerked to the right and I saw him fly past me, so I did not get back on the gas pedal. It sucked to lose when we had been running so good all weekend, and had our family there, but there is always the next regional race in Topeka, and the national event in Indy coming up.”
This is Rachel’s third final round in her new Copeland-built dragster, and her fourth final of the year in A/Fuel. Rachel also has a win in her Super Comp Dragster from earlier this year. The Randy Meyer Racing Team has advanced to over 10 final rounds in 2019, collecting 6 wins in the NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster class.
