Following a month long mid-winter on-line polling period Canada’s premier all drag racing website, www.DragRaceCanada.com has announced the results of the 3rd Annual Canadian Drag Racers of the Year voting. The pole which is co-presented by DragRaceCanada sponsor Eaton Electrical, allowed drag racing fans worldwide to select the top Canadian performer in four categories from last season. The response from the voting public was tremendous. In fact the number of votes cast on-line doubled that of the previous year.

Quebec’s Daniel Mercier, who rode his injected-nitro Top Alcohol Dragster to a number of firsts by a Canadian, was selected by fans as the top Professional Driver for last season. Mercier, under the capable guidance of his crew chief Serge Blanchette and talented supporting cast, ripped through the NHRA Division One TAD circuit last season. By winning three races consecutively, Mercier took the overall Northeast Division points championship becoming the first Canadian to achieve that. Mercier also made history during September’s rain-delayed Toyo Tires Nationals when he became only the fourth Canadian driver to win a National event title in the class – and the first to do it with an injected nitro car. Overall Daniel received the most votes in all of the categories and gathered a highly impressive 70.5% for Pro voting. London, Ontario’s Paul Noakes, who enjoyed a career season in Alcohol Funny Car racing by claiming two IHRA national event wins last season, placed second.
Following a month long mid-winter on-line polling period Canada’s premier all drag racing website, www.DragRaceCanada.com has announced the results of the 3rd Annual Canadian Drag Racers of the Year voting. The pole which is co-presented by DragRaceCanada sponsor Eaton Electrical, allowed drag racing fans worldwide to select the top Canadian performer in four categories from last season. The response from the voting public was tremendous. In fact the number of votes cast on-line doubled that of the previous year.

Quebec’s Daniel Mercier, who rode his injected-nitro Top Alcohol Dragster to a number of firsts by a Canadian, was selected by fans as the top Professional Driver for last season. Mercier, under the capable guidance of his crew chief Serge Blanchette and talented supporting cast, ripped through the NHRA Division One TAD circuit last season. By winning three races consecutively, Mercier took the overall Northeast Division points championship becoming the first Canadian to achieve that. Mercier also made history during September’s rain-delayed Toyo Tires Nationals when he became only the fourth Canadian driver to win a National event title in the class – and the first to do it with an injected nitro car. Overall Daniel received the most votes in all of the categories and gathered a highly impressive 70.5% for Pro voting. London, Ontario’s Paul Noakes, who enjoyed a career season in Alcohol Funny Car racing by claiming two IHRA national event wins last season, placed second.

2nd generation driver Victoria Smith became the first female winner in the 3-year history of the DragRaceCanada Awards program, selected as the Sportsman Driver of the year. The 23-year old University Grad, who is daughter to legendary Canadian race car builder F.J. (Fred) Smith, parlayed a fast season start to claim the overall points title in the fiercely competitive Can-Am Stock/Super Stock series which is held primarily in Eastern Canada. The title came in what was Victoria’s 6th year of drag racing competition and driving the high-tech Smith Performance Specialties flagship GT/AA ’05 Pontiac Sunfire. Victoria’s winning percentage was 38.7% which edged out multi-dimensional Sportsman racer Jason Kenny (who is also from Ontario) and Edmonton-area ET star racer James Pahl in the final tally.

The Most Improved category featured many worthy nominees however it was Manitoba’s Kenny Lang that emerged first in that category. Lang, who is an expert auto-body specialist from Grand Pointe, ran his first full season on the IHRA Pro Modified tour last year and secured a Top Ten finish in final Emax Championship series points. Lang’s breakout season highlight reel included a career best ET of 6.07 secs, an event pole qualifying effort (at Epping NH) and an event runner-up finish (at Edmonton, AB) driving his supercharged ’53 Corvette. Lang beat out Calgary’s Roger Bateman who enjoyed a terrific comeback season in NHRA TAFC racing as well as Toronto’s Raymond Commisso who enjoyed a sensational season second half with his Camaro Pro Modified.

Al Billes, who is arguably Canada’s top secret weapon in drag racing, was selected rather overwhelmingly as the top Crew Chief/Tuner for 2006. After enduring a couple of major crashes during the 2005 season which sidelined him as a driver, Billes concentrated completely on engine-building and tuning duties in ‘06 as was instrumental in taking a number of Pro Modified circuit racers to career best numbers and important event victories. For Billes it was in fact his second Canadian Drag Racer of the Year award. In 2004 Billes was the top vote getter in Pro Driver balloting. 48.9% of voters overall selected Billes allowing him to topple Winnipeg’s Ken Murray (Friesen Motorsports) and the top “write in” vote getter Serge Blanchette (DM Racing) in the category.

Each of the 2006 Canadian Drag Racers of the Year will receive a handsome “NitroMoose” sculpture from DragRaceCanada and Eaton Electrical.