Kristen wootton earns tad competition license‏

KRISTEN WOOTTON IMPRESSES IN A/FUEL DRAGSTER LICENSING

Baytown, Texas – For several years, driving a 260 mile per hour race car was a dream for Magnolia, Texas resident Kristen Wootton. This past weekend at the DragRaceHose.com Spring Warm-Up event held at Houston Raceway Park, her dream became a reality as Wootton completed her licensing requirements for the NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster division.

Over the period of two days, Wootton, the mother of two children ages 11 and 2 and wife of ADRL Pro Extreme Driver Don Wootton, made seven runs down the HRP quarter-mile driving the family’s recently purchased A/Fuel Dragster tuned by veteran chassis builder and crew chief, Joe Monden. Those seven runs were Wootton’s first down a drag strip in any dragster. And she handled the car like a seasoned veteran of the sport of drag racing.

“The original plan was for me to get some seat time in a Super Comp Dragster,” noted Wootton. “The plans fell through and our crew chief Joe Monden talked it over with us and we decided to give it a shot with the A/fuel car. I received some very detailed instructions from Joe via email about the procedures on how to operate the car. After spending hours on my recliner at home, visualizing driving the car, I felt pretty secure and safe strapped into this very powerful and fast race car.”

Monden’s instructions were very detailed, noted Wootton, however lacked one important detail. What would it feel like when the car launched at full throttle? In order to acclimate her to the power of 3,500 horse power, Monden decided to place a throttle stop on the car, progressively increasing the power on each quarter-mile run. “Kristen did amazing with all the procedures and handled the car exceptionally well,” noted Monden. “From the time she warmed up the car, did her burnout, launched the car and pulled off in the shut down area, she handled it better than most drivers I’ve ever dealt with. I’m very impressed and she should be very proud of herself.”

Monden’s instruction also included what to do in an emergency situation, which Wootton faced on her first full pass with 100 percent throttle. As she negotiated the race track in 5.69 seconds at a speed of 260 miles per hour, the parachutes failed to deploy. Wootton calmly pulled the fuel shut off, the computer and began to ease on the brakes until the car eventually came to a stop in the shut down area without entering the sand trap.

“I didn’t want to mess up the car,” Wootton said with a laugh. “Both Joe and Don told me what to do in case of emergency. Once I had the procedures down, and the carbon fiber brakes were getting hot, I knew it would slow down. It was really no big deal. If I can handle two kids and running a business, I was surely going to stop that car before it hit the sand trap. ”

Wootton then recorded a solid, yet cylinder dropping 5.41 second E.T. on her final pass which licensed NHRA drivers Chase Copeland and Terry Haddock agreed was good enough to sign off on her NHRA competition license.