Brandon - September 23, 2020

Driver of the Year

Hey guys, welcome back to our BracketLife Blog. It is Brandon once again this week and I'm here to tell you about my experiences winning Driver of the Year in 2015 and 2018. To get started I’ll take you back five years.

Five years ago (in 2015), my family and I made the decision to travel to more races beyond our local tracks that year. After starting out the season racing locally, I was able to find the winners circle in July at Shannonville Motorsports Park. This also happened to be the weekend before we were loading up to head down to Miramichi, New Brunswick for the Inaugural Downeast Nationals. I was 19 years old at the time, and was making the trip down with my mom, with my Uncle hauling the racing truck & trailer with my dragster in it. We spent the week before the race touring the east coast before heading to the race track. Despite the fact that we got rained out on Sunday, the highlight of my year was definitely winning my first 'big money' race on the Saturday! It was $10k to win, and I got my first big cheque that day. It was an unbelievable experience when everyone of the locals were lined up to congratulate me before I got back to the trailer.

Following that weekend, we came home and headed straight to ESTA Safety Park in Cicero, NY for their Annual Twin 10’s. I had been to this race a few times before, and this event had been my first dip into racing in the US. This weekend, I was able to put together a bunch of good runs and made it down to the round of 7 cars left where I lost to the eventual winner and fellow Canadian Bracket Racer, Troy Davis.

I finished up the year with one more win and a few more good showings, and it resulted in me receiving the Larry Tandy Driver of the Year Award at Shannonville Motorsports Park for the first time.

My second Driver of the Year award came in 2018. This was definitely my breakout season on the track. I started out with a double up weekend at Luskville, and then a solid week of racing in Michigan for the SFG race. Then I started to turn it on, winning $5k at the Bracket Bonanza, $10k at Wawa’s Northern Nationals, doubling up with 2 $5k wins at the Fall Bracket Nationals, a win in the $3k high roller race at ESTA and capped the year off with a $10k win at the Canadian Bracket Finals at ICAR. I also won the Show Me the Money Tour Championship, as well as the Canadian Bracket Super Tour Championship that year. As well, this was the year we set out for the Million that I talked about in my last blog post. So you could say it was a pretty successful season.

I was then, for the second time in my racing career, awarded Driver of the Year; but this time at Luskville Dragway.

Overall, these experiences have been unbelievable. I have been very fortunate to be able to do what I do in the manner I do it in. I would like to thank everyone for their support and encouragement over the past few years. It has been a great ride and I plan on keeping it going for a long time!