Shawna Woudstra from Junior Dragster to Top Dragster

Burlington, On (Aug 23 2010) Shawna Woudstra is not your typical nineteen year old university student. She is living life in the fast lane, balancing being a full time university student and a drag racer, along with all the normal stuff for a girl her age. But be sure this is no mall rat that cares about the hottest trends or chasing after the guys, unless it’s on the race track. This nineteen year old is enrolled at the University of Guelph in the Adult Development, Families and Wellbeing course. It’s an applied science course that gives Shawna the option in the future of being in the social service sector or a therapist, well that is if this drag racing thing doesn’t work out for her.

Over the past 11 years this young lady has made her way through the junior dragster ranks all the way to the Top Dragster class. Shawna got started at the age of 8 when her father Dan got his hands on two junior dragsters. What started out as an investment quickly turned into a lot more. Dan bought the two cars with the intention of simply cleaning them up with some TLC and then was hoping to flip them to make a couple bucks in the process. But Shawna would have none of it and took a liking to them and caught the bug. From that point on she traded her tutu and ballet shoes for a fire suit and helmet. Little did she know the biggest opposition she would face would be at the hands of her mom Brenda. You see as is the case with all moms’ out there she was none to happy about the idea of her baby girl strapping into this race car that was parked out in dads shop. Dan was smart enough to steer clear of the battle between mom and daughter but Shawna proved to her mom that this is what she really wanted to do and she found a home in the seat of her junior. With every pass her confidence continued to grow, and as is the case with just about every drag racer she wanted to go faster. When Shawna turned 18 she kind of knew her time in a junior was coming to a close. Dan and Brenda tried to get her to take the wheel of Dan’s blown S-10 pick up or even the Camaro muscle car that he had but Shawna said it would be a dragster or nothing. One December day her dreams came true when Dan called her to the shop to show her the rolling chassis he had just picked up, a 2004 Horton Top Dragster. Again Brenda was more than concerned simply because this was a car capable of going much faster than the junior ever did. And believe it or not it was Shawna who told both her parents that it has been proven that a dragster is far safer than a door car. But mom and dad still have their moments watching from the starting line.

As far as I’m concerned this is family drag racing at its best. Dan is the crew chief and Brenda takes care of all the paperwork like sponsor commitments, filing information and all the computer work that comes with operating a race team, while Shawna drives. Dan points out that Shawna’s racing was never forced on her. She chose this and the things that she has turned down to go racing still make him laugh. She has turned down numerous birthday parties, weddings, school dances and other functions to be able to go racing. And really at the end of the day when it comes time to spend time with the family at the track what could be better. I mean how many dads out there would gladly trade spots to know just exactly what there nineteen year old daughters are doing? Far too many times you see parents push their kids to do something, only to see them fade away when they reach the age of 16 or 17. Racing for the Woudstra team has always been about doing something as a family and having fun in the process.

It’s safe to say that any race team can not do what they do with out the help of a lot of people. Glen Horner and Marsha McLaughlin at Castrol have been on board since day one as well as Dan’s own shop, Classic Rad. In her 11 year racing career her accomplishments speak for themselves. She has two track championships, never finished less than third in the points for each year she has raced and she has two Ironman trophies when some racers go an entire career without even getting close to one, not to mention a trophy room that has more than one hundred trophies from various races she has won. Yet with all the success this team has had Shawna knows that there is still a lot that can be done. Experience is everything and with each pass she is gaining the valuable seat time she needs to have a future in the sport. She stays sharp with the practice tree continuously working on her reaction times and admits the hardest thing to get use to is the length of this car compared to her old car.

A 468 Big Block Chevrolet sits between the rails of the dragster and Shawna has gone a career best 8.32 at 166 mph. She hopes to get into the 7 second zone soon and is always working on improving her performance in the car. The ultimate goal would be to one day race Top Fuel and she knows that if it wasn’t for ladies like Shirley Muldowney, Shelly Anderson and even Angele Sampey, paving the way maybe none of this drag racing stuff would be possible. The Woudstra team is happy with where they are right now but Dan points out knowing how determined his daughter is nothing would surprise him when it comes to Shawna’s racing future.

One thing is for sure. The investment he put into those two junior dragsters 11 years ago is paying off far better than he could have imagined.

 Brad Turk
Canadian Drag Racer Magazine

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