Gradually, Trevor Eman’s American Drag Racing League learning curve is getting less steep.

The 23-year-old Eman is in his first full year competing in the ADRL’s Extreme Pro Stock class, and he showing a lot of progress.

Eman qualified eighth at the ADRL Hardee’s Independence Drags IV at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan., this past weekend. He proceeded to win his first-round match-up with Elijah Morton. Eman used a holeshot to beat Morton, clocking a 4.206-second pass, compared to Morton’s 4.191. Where Eman beat Morton was at the light, with a .034 reaction time, while Morton was two hundredths slower at .058.

Gradually, Trevor Eman’s American Drag Racing League learning curve is getting less steep.

The 23-year-old Eman is in his first full year competing in the ADRL’s Extreme Pro Stock class, and he showing a lot of progress.

Eman qualified eighth at the ADRL Hardee’s Independence Drags IV at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan., this past weekend. He proceeded to win his first-round match-up with Elijah Morton. Eman used a holeshot to beat Morton, clocking a 4.206-second pass, compared to Morton’s 4.191. Where Eman beat Morton was at the light, with a .034 reaction time, while Morton was two hundredths slower at .058.

“I’m happy with what I was able to do (at Topeka), and I just need to (keep) trying harder,” said Eman, who competed in two ADRL races last year. “I just need to keep getting better at my lights and keep them more consistent. If we can keep up our performance as a team, hopefully we can win a race.”

At Topeka, the first round of Pro Extreme Motorcycle, Extreme Pro Stock, Pro Nitrous, and Extreme 10.5 were completed before the race was postponed Saturday evening by persistent rain. The plan is to complete the Topeka event at St. Louis. The ADRL Hardee’s Gateway Drags are Aug. 6-7 at Gateway International Raceway.

The next ADRL event is July 23-24 at Houston, but the Topeka race couldn’t be finished there because the Houston schedule is already crammed.

At the season-opening ADRL race March 19-20 at Houston Raceway Park, qualifying was never completed. So at Houston July 23-24, the first Houston race will be completed followed by the new Houston race.

Eman’s solid effort at Topeka came on the heels of him qualifying a career-best third at the ADRL event in Martin, Mich., June 11-12. He beat Mark Martino in the opening round, but lost in the second round to Steven Boone.

Actually, Martino is who Eman faces in the second round at Topeka when that race resumes.

While there are numerous roads to professional drag racing, Eman has taken a different path to the ADRL.

“I started bracket racing when I was 16 years old in Aruba,” Eman explained. “I was born and raised there and I bracket raced there for about two to three years. Then, I came to the United States to go to college, and I started racing here.”

Eman is attending college at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. He is a senior at UCF majoring in mechanical engineering and he is scheduled to graduate in December of 2011.

“I came to the United States because the universities we have in Aruba are a medical school, a law (school) university or a hospitality management (school),” Eman said. “Aruba is pretty limited for universities and if you want to become an engineer, you either have to come to the United States or Europe to go to school. I’m going to school full-time, trying to mix everything together. I hope the professor doesn’t put an exam on race weekends.”

Although Eman is getting a college education, he has no plans of quitting racing.

“The degree is just a back-up,” Eman said. “We would like to keep racing and keep this Aruba thing going on.”

Eman’s 2006 Ford Escort is a postcard for Aruba. It’s painted orange, yellow and blue and has www.aruba.com written in orange across both sides of the car.

“We’re sponsored by the government of Aruba,” Eman said. “We get sponsored by them and the goal we have is to try and convince people to go take a vacation to Aruba. Everybody we talk to at the track, racers, fans whomever. We have free information to give out and Aruba relies on tourism.”

Aruba is in the most Southern part of the Caribbean just about 30 miles north of Venezuela.

“We just really enjoy racing,” Eman said. “We were doing it for a very long time in Aruba, and it got to the point where we had two Pro Stock cars in Aruba and we were the only two Pro Stock cars in Aruba. It got to the point where we wanted to try something different and something more challenging, so we decided to try racing in the United States. We came up with that idea in 2004 and it has kept going. We didn’t think we would still be doing it in 2010.”

Prior to joining the ADRL, Eman’s team competed in IHRA Pro Stock races the last two to three years. In addition to the ADRL, Eman also is competing this year in the Mountain Motor Pro Stock Association.

“The racing in the ADRL is a lot closer because of the eighth-mile distance,” Eman said. “You have to be a lot better on your lights and a lot more consistent with what you’re doing to the car. In my opinion, going from a quarter-mile track to an eighth-mile track is making that window for a victory smaller. That’s why we challenge ourselves to keep our consistency and performance up as best as we can.”

Eman knows a win on the racetrack will most likely translate into a win for Aruba. And, a win for Aruba is a way to keep his racing funded.