It didn’t take Corey Michalek long to prove he could drive a Top Alcohol Dragster.

In his first Top Alcohol Dragster competition, Michalek won the class at NHRA’s Four-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway.

Michalek’s memorable race included wins over Matthew Cummings, Randy Meyer, five-time national champion Bill Reichert, and Brandon Booher.

It didn’t take Corey Michalek long to prove he could drive a Top Alcohol Dragster.

In his first Top Alcohol Dragster competition, Michalek won the class at NHRA’s Four-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway.

Michalek’s memorable race included wins over Matthew Cummings, Randy Meyer, five-time national champion Bill Reichert, and Brandon Booher.

“Honestly, this is still so new to me,” Michalek said. “Every time we get in the car everything is still a very mechanical check off the list one by one, by one. This is the only time in my entire career driving an A/Fuel car that I saw a win light come on. I got the chutes out, pulled the brake as hard as I could, shut off the fuel, killed the ignition and it was pretty much pandemonium inside the car from there.”

Although Michalek defied the odds to capture the victory, he wasn’t about to make any bold predictions.

“I have been around this long enough to that this is not something that happens very often,” Michalek said. “For that I’m very fortunate. I was driving a safe, fast, consistent race car that can go out and win any race it enters. We caught a couple of breaks throughout the day, but we went through murderers’ row to get through here at the end of the day. If I had to call it a career it wouldn’t be bad, but if this is the start I sure hope we can keep it going because it is a lot of fun.”

Michalek ending up in an NHRA winners circle seemed highly unlikely, considering his background.

“That’s one of the wildest things about this,” Michalek said. “Growing up I didn’t have any interest in anything automotive. My brother (Kyle) and my dad, they were really into NASCAR and my mom actually went to high school with Mark Thomas, a seven-time IHRA Alcohol Funny Car champion. She introduced my brother to Mark and he started working on his crew. Through Kyle I went to my first race and I was hooked from there.”

Michalek then began adding lines to his drag racing resume.

“I have chased the dream,” Michalek said. “I have driven a Super Comp car, and I worked on Mark’s car for a while and I worked for Pat Dakin for two years. The driving force was that I always wanted to have the opportunity to drive an alcohol car, maybe a fuel car one day.”

The racing careers of the Michalek brothers received a jolt when they won the inaugural Champion Spark Plugs “Search for a Champion” contest in 2012.

“The Champion deal is what made this all happen,” Corey said. “We always wanted to do this and we finally had the funding and the financial support to be able to do it. To have them on the car this weekend just makes it all the more special.”

Michalek also isn’t afraid to dream about driving a Top Fuel car in the future.

“That’s the reason we picked an A/Fuel car,” Michalek said. “We could have picked an alcohol dragster, but the driving process in A/Fuel is very similar to Top Fuel, though obviously they don’t pull quite as hard. The biggest obstacle is coming up with the financial backing for it. We dreamed about this, so if that came true why can’t that one?”
 

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