Drag racer sets record

Times Reporter  

 

When Lightswitch Drag Racer owner and coach Peter Sotropa was looking for a young drag racer for the 2014 season, he would have never thought out of sheer luck that he would run into 10-year-old Alyssa Skanderup. 

It all began when Peter needed help sealing his garage door and Alyssa’s dad, Kevin, helped him fix it. 

This is where Peter and Alyssa got to know one another and she had no hesitation when asked about being a drag racer.

“Her dad wanted (her) to be a part of it right from the beginning, which is a good thing too because you have to have parent involvement,” said Sotropa. “If you don’t (have parent) commitment, it’s a long time to be away on weekends when its summertime.”

When Sotropa found Alyssa, he found something unique in her and that was the determination to like speed.

“She always wanted to go faster. Kevin was told when we were doing our licensing runs in Medicine Hat, that (the car) is a nine second car, it’s not for a first-year driver, “said Sotropa.

Skanderup’s trial runs were around 10 seconds and that was a good trial run, considering the rest of the field was racing at 12 seconds.

“We didn’t put the dial board on the car until she could run a nine second. We just wrote it on the side with shoe polish,” said Sotropa.

The first time Skanderup was on the track, a side wind had developed and she felt the car go sideways and considering the circumstances, she handled it pretty well.

“For me I’m the observer and looking for things, I see we have a real side wind, what’s going to happen? I know the car is starting to go this way, what’s she going to do?“ said Sotropa. “The first thing she did was incorrect – she pulled the back wheel quick, but she knew (the car) was going and next time I watched her (the wheel) came over (the other way).”

The coaching philosophy for Skanderup was to learn from her trial run mistakes and make herself better, and as a result she started setting records.

“It’s worked to the point where we have set records first year out,” said Sotropa. “I don’t think Alyssa knows how good she is because for her it’s natural and for other kids to be running 8.8 seconds, I’ve never seen it before.”

When she set the record at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, the most impressive thing in Sotropa’s view was that she was able to get her timing right in between lights and doing so at a high speed.

“We had a really tacky track which is great for us in Castrol. She red lighted because the car was leaving so hard, it was an immediate hook up no spin at all and she was hitting good lights, what she tries to do is hit that last yellow,” said Sotropa.

“So I said to her, ‘I’m going ask you to do something that I know is difficult but you have to try it. Instead of hitting it on the last yellow, see if you can get it between the yellow and the green (where) there is a half a second in between those lights.’ ”

For Skanderup, the idea of speed was enough excitement to get her in the car.

“When I was around six or seven my dad would drive … and asked me to come sit on his lap and he’s like ‘here I’ll do the pedals, you do the steering’ and I’m like ‘ok,’ ” said Skanderup. “When I saw the car I’m like I might be able to reach these pedals unlike the other vehicles and I knew it would go fast.”

When she is in the car, her thought process is strictly on timing the lights right and accelerating on the track properly.

“In my head I say to myself ‘pay attention, look at the light, don’t lift until Peter tells me to.’ On race weekends all of the stuff I’ve learned from Peter are in my head,” said Skanderup, who also enjoys singing and dancing.

She is the only female in her age group (10-13) on the Thunder circuit. 

Being a first year racer, Skanderup did collect some hardware in her first race in Rimbey, as she placed first. However, in the second Rimbey race she was a little hesitant off the start, but ended up second. 

The most memorable moment was beating a guy named Ricky at Castrol in Edmonton with a time of 8.8 seconds.

Skanderup plans to race again next season if she is provided the opportunity.