Former junior drag racing champ, Brooklyn Fiesel of Melville, was on hands to defend her title at the eighth annual Kam Busters Prairie Thunder Drags. Unfortunately for the young racer motor problems kept her off the podium this year.
Daughter of SJHL Melville Millionaires head coach Jamie Fiesel, Brooklynn has been drag racing for about five years. Fiesel senior has who has always been drag racing according to Brooklyn, had her accompanying him to the track since she was a two-year-old. "One day he had the idea to put the kids into a junior dragster. We tried it out, loved it and kept on from there," Brooklyn explains.
A seventeen year old, Fiesel is in her last year as a junior racer. She will turn 18 at the end of August and may move up. Competitive wakeboarding consumes a lot of her time in the summer, she's not sure whether she will, in fact, move up in drag racing. "I'd love to get into my dad's car and take it for a rip one day," she suggests with a chuckle.
The junior dragster she currently races is a half scale rear engine slingshot dragster powered by a single cyclinder motor. "It doesn't have very many horsepower but it can go 0-90 in 7.9 seconds, so it's very fast," Fiesel claims.
While it's not hard to keep it on course unless there's a side wind, it's very hard to turn because of its length, she points out.
A Millionaires hockey fan, Fiesel claims that with the new arena, her dad as head coach the team is all set to go all the way next season.
