A Flaming Good Time at Vegreville Speedway

A Flaming Good Time at Vegreville Speedway

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

There were 29 racers and 127 spectators at Vegreville Speedway’s last race of the season on September 10 at Vegreville Airport.

Member Kendall Freed said the drag race turned out well. One of the highlights was Ryan McQueen from Sherwood Park who was doing a line show, engine fire up and test of his jet powered supercar.

McQueen explained, “I’m from Sherwood Park and had reached out to the Vegreville Speedway about doing a line show and test at the same time. This car is a completely hand built car that I built in my little two car garage in Sherwood Park. It’s called Insanity (which my wife so very correctly named). The car is the world’s only twin afterburning jet powered Supercar. It has over 14,000 pounds of thrust which roughly equates to 18,000 horsepower.

Ryan McQueen performs a line show test on his twin jet powered car.

(Rosanne Fortier/Photo)

It took 17 years to build as I pretty much knew nothing going into the project and self-taught myself all the skills such as welding, fibreglass and carbon fibre, jet engine mechanics, electrical, and other stuff for the past several years.

All I’ve been able to do was display it at a few car shows here and there while I completed all the inner workings of the car, and just a couple of weeks ago, we got the car running both engines and afterburners for the first time in a parking lot just outside of Sherwood Park.

I’ve been following the Vegreville Speedway for several years and thought what better place to run the car for the very first time in front of a crowd. It’s so new that I felt comfortable doing a line show and we could test all the systems and shutdown systems. I showed up with 400 litres of Jet-A fuel in the tanks, did the one line show which involved a lot of smoke, fire and noise, and left with only about 20 litres left in the car. The math on that equates to me having a really fun time and hoping that everyone enjoyed it. I am grateful to everyone for being so nice and welcoming,” Ryan said.

Ryan McQueen performs a line show test on his twin jet powered car.

(Rosanne Fortier/Photo)

The winners of the races were: Darrell Sabrowski, driving a 2011 Danger Ranger. Runner-up: Keven Bouchard from Cold Lake driving a 1985 Pontiac Parisienne. Semi-finalist: Nat Brousseau from Clandonald driving a 2017 Infiniti Q 60. King of the Hill, Winner: Mathiew Doiron from Elk Point driving a 1990 Chev. 1500. Runner-up: Sean Chilibecki driving a 1972 Comet GT. Run your index” right on” winner: Kendall Freed driving a 1970 Nova SS.