Third year of Ontario drag-n-drive. Three tracks over three days. The Horsepower Hat Trick was an overall success. We battled mother nature a little on our last day, but stuck it out to the end. We had more attrition than any previous year, and that was before tech even happened! The road claimed a few more along the way. Our initial sign up total of 181 was whittled down to 122 returning to St. Thomas during the rains. On track we had the fastest field of cars yet, with our overall winner cracking the 8 second average barrier for the first time at Dragway Rush and the remaining top ten finishers all in the 9s. We had returning Dragway Rush veterans doubling down on class wins and new comers to drag-n-drive walking away with hardware as well.

Our biggest story was Nic Poirier in the Big Tire Camaro. Not only was he Dragway Rush's first average in the 8s, capturing the bounty money, he also one class, fastest GM car and obviously our fastest overall. Walking away with the most hardware by volume and putting the rest of the field on notice for 2027.

In Gear Jammers, Scott Storey was leading last year's champ Benny Giesbrecht by just 0.0007 after our second day. He returned to St. Thomas and laid down an even quicker pass, but Benny absolutely wrung out everything his Mustang had and was able to pull ahead at the last minute and snatch the overall win by 0.02.

The battle in Naturally Aspirated saw a similar scenario play out on the final day. Chucky Skinner was leading by a good margin over last year's winner Norm Tannahill before suffering a mechanical issue that he didn't have time to fully sort out before the rains came back. He was able to turn in a slip, but Norm didn't leave enough on the table for the Dirty Bird to slow down even a little and the black Camaro took home the title again.

In Hard Tire Arun Ahuja walked away from the rest of the field in the new C8, running in the 9 second range. An unheard of level of performance in the class up to this point.

Modified was taken by Jordan Klassen with his Camaro. Clicking off his first 8 second blast in the car. He also finished third fastest overall.

Wes Dyck captured the win in Modern Swap again with his Malibu, being the quickest car in class, but with the slowest overall reaction time. He took home awards on both ends of the spectrum.

Darcy MacCoubrey was another racer who won his class for the second year in a row. The Dart was once again the most consistent car on the property in Daily Driver, holding off the Falcon of Steve Klein.

Kevin Heraiz came into the event a little outgunned in Small Tire with his Malibu, but as everyone here knows... In order to win a drag-n-drive, first you have to finish the drag-n-drive. One by one the quicker cars dropped out and the consistency of the Malibu payed off.

All Wheel Drive was captured by a guy who wasn't even supposed to be in an Audi. After the Bronco II called it quits, Ben Henderson essentially "stole" a back-up vehicle that wound up taking him to victory.

In our Front Wheel Drive division, Marcel Brosseau took the win home in his Colbalt after fixing damages on the first day. Much to the dismay of the track officials who had to keep sweeping up after every launch the car made. Either way his competition couldn't keep up, but boy did they have a close race for second, with Keith McPherson in his Mazdaspeed besting the SRT-4 of Clint McAdams.

Nic Sawyer was able to double up in our budget class known as "Midnight on Marketplace" in his Civic Si, with the rest of the field a total duplicate of last year's finish order after one half of the field did not return for the final raceday.

For the first time at Dragway Rush, we had motorcycles. Michael Karas aboard his Suzuki was able to take the win and hold off the Harley Sportsters.

Leaf Spring again went to Tyler Cornish in one of the few cars, in what is mostly a truck class. Jon Sovereign put in a good fight with the S10, leading the way for the trucks and placing second. Both drivers finishing with 9 second averages.

After fighting to just get the car here for the last two years, Jared Balfour's Challenger did not disappoint in year three. Plenty of people were talking about it after seeing it run in the lower 9s.

Despite more open rule changes to our Nostalgia class, the trophy still went home with another gasser. The Mopar powered Ford driven by Michael Hudson topped the class this year.

Pete Klassen was overall fastest in our Tailgater class. The Chev was able to hold off the hard charging Shelby Ford and Turbo Ram by averaging in the 11 second range.

Rick Charters took home the win in our Tiny Tire class, which saw more breakage than usual. Either way, nobody was catching the V6 gen three Camaro after running consistent mid 11’s.

Speaking of gen three Camaros, we had another one top the leaderboard in Super Street. Paulo Silveira’s nitrous small block car dipped into the 8’s and finished second quickest overall. It was also enough to impress our judges when taking a closer look and took home our “Smarty Pants” award for it’s super clean simplicity that just plain works.

So now you know a fraction of what it takes to win a drag-n-drive event. Get planning, start wrenching and we’ll see you back in 2027. If you haven’t tried this type of event you are missing out on not just great racing, but a chance to get out and drive your vehicle on some great back roads to check out what Ontario has to offer. Outside the cars you will also find some of the greatest people the car hobby has to offer. I’ll leave you with a story from this event that hammers this home. Tonny Letkeman showed up on tech day with a car that already wasn’t his. Like many this year, at the last minute something went wrong with his chariot and his friend let him borrow a ‘69 Camaro, provided they got to come along for fun of course. The Camaro unfortunately had it’s two door bars on the cage cut out and was not able to run at the speeds they were hoping for. Tonny asked around in the Dragway Rush pit area if anyone could help out with this predicament, and was able to get the car to another racer’s local shop, have two new bars re-installed in the cage and got back in time on the same day to get back in line for tech and pass with an E.T. limit he was happier with. The Camaro went on to be our second place finisher in Modern Swap to boot!

This is what drag-n-drive is all about. We hope to see returning faces and some new ones as well next year. The planning phase is already spinning around in my head.

Thanks to each and every one of you who came out to race, take video/photos or just came out for a day to watch these guys in action. We’ll see you in 2027!

Chris Gubinski and the Dragway Rush Team