Turner earns license at 160 mph

Attaining your passenger-car license can mean many different things to a sixteen year-old student. The privilege can symbolize freedom, or simply the ability to drive to school, work or travel out of town with friends. For Lauren Turner, local teenager and drag racer, it meant being eligible to also license in the quickest of the National Hot Rod Association’s (NHRA) sportsman heads-up index classes.
One week after turning “sweet sixteen,” Lauren who is currently a sophomore at Verndale High School traveled to Gainesville, Florida to attend the Frank Hawley School of Drag Racing in hopes of being one of the youngest female drivers to earn her NHRA competition license in an alcohol burning Super Comp Dragster.
The Frank Hawley School of Drag Racing is the most prestigious school of its type in the U.S. and Lauren is one of the youngest drivers to go through the program. The course is taught by Frank Hawley himself (a very successful professional drag racer—now retired) and features instruction on safety, burnouts, staging, timing systems, proper track procedures, reaction times, car control and the psychology vs. physiology of drag racing.
“It was an amazing experience,” reports Lauren. “I have to admit that I was a little nervous at first, but after the first burnout, my nerves turned into excitement. This is a dream come true for me and I want to thank the whole community for all of their support and encouragement.”
Lauren has been drag racing competitively since the age of eleven in a Jr. Dragster which is a half-scale version of these cars using a single cylinder motor. The youth division is broken into three categories by age and limited by 1/8 mile elapsed time and mph with a top speed of 85 mph. In comparison, she will now be racing a car powered by an 800 horsepower V-8 engine in a division with all adults on the ¼ mile track at speeds of 165+ mph!
“I couldn’t be more proud of her,” beams Mark Turner, Lauren’s crew chief and dad. “It’s a big jump from her previous car, but she handled the transition without skipping a beat. Lauren ended up being one of only two drivers out of seven in the class who successfully licensed with her initial six runs and recorded the quickest elapsed time and speed of the course.”
Lauren’s last two licensing passes were nearly identical—traveling the ¼ mile strip in 8.32 seconds at 160 mph.
With the support of Lucas Oil Products, Tony’s Transfer of Wadena and Mobile Motorsports of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Lauren will be racing her full-size dragster primarily in Minnesota this summer at Brainerd International Raceway and Top End Dragways near the Fargo/Moorhead area. Congratulations Lauren and best of luck this season!

Photo: Lauren Turner, 16, of Verndale, was one of the youngest female drivers to earn her NHRA competition license in an alcohol buring Super Comp Dragster at the Frank Hawley School of Drag Racing in Gainesville, Florida.
—submitted photo

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