Story and Photos by Alan Ashley
While most girls her age would spend their weekends relaxing, Ally Muchler, an 8th-grader at Beach Middle School, is showing her competitive side.
Ally can be found racing her IHRA Junior Dragster at the US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, north of Kalamazoo, which is considered her home track.
Junior dragsters are ½-scale dragsters driven by kids 8-18 years. Races are 1/8 mile in length (660 feet) and the oldest drivers can reach a speed of 80 m.p.h. Some kids have used the junior dragster series as a stepping stone to begin a racing career, driving Top Fuel dragsters and Nitro Funny Cars in the NHRA you may have seen on TV.
Ally has won several trophies, including the Junior Dragster Race of Champions at the US 131 Motorsports Park on Sept. 14.
But Ally isn’t the only racer in the family. Evan, her brother and a 3rd-grader at South Meadows Elementary School, just obtained his racing license and plans to begin competing next year.
How did she get “bit” by the racing bug? Her father, Tracy, races a 1969 Opal GT as a bracket racer. Bracket racing is when you predict your time, but not going faster than that time and still beat the car in the other lane.
Her mother, Amanda, goes to the tracks to support everyone.
Ally would like to continue drag racing after the junior dragster series. And, she would like to race her dad’s Opal GT or something else, if her dad buys another car by then.
But that is in the future.
Right now, her focus is heading to Memphis in a couple weeks to compete in the Junior Dragster Summit Series Championship.
Good luck, Ally.
