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Vegreville’s Dave Stewart NHRDA World Record Champion!
Vegreville’s Dave Stewart NHRDA World Record Champion!
Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent
With the right attitude and determination, big dreams can come true!
That holds true for Dave Stewart won the National Hot Rod Diesel Association (NHRDA), 2024 World Final Hot Rod Semi Class Championship when he raced with the Full Tilt Peterbilt truck on Sept. 13 and 14 at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis Texas. He set world records in ET and MPH, with an 11.203 ET at 122.50 MPH at the September 14 race.
Dave Stewart, grew up in the Hairy Hill/Willingdon area, and has resided in Vegreville for many years. As well, he is the Owner of Das Nitrogen Services Ltd.
Stewart mentioned that he has been racing with the Vegreville Speedway and NHRDA since 2018, and that’s the year he won the big rig bracket racing at NHRDA.
Stewart built this truck himself with the goal of earning the world record for the fastest semi-truck in Canada. This race truck used to be a working vacuum truck and then he built a grain box to put on it and sat it on the farm until he saw one of these trucks at a race in Edmonton, and then made a race truck out of it. He just took it apart and started changing stuff on it.
Stewart expressed that he realized two or three years ago that this racing wasn’t a hobby or sport anymore. “I worked to make money to build my race truck or I would fix stuff to sell to make money for my race truck or I would be racing. But I liked doing it as it gave me something to do. It was a lot of work and many trials and errors because when you are building a semi-truck like this, you can’t go online to find out what to do.”
Stewart noted that he especially likes the semi-racing because it is different as anyone can go out and buy a race car. “Everything is so big and heavy. It takes so much more horsepower to move everything. My truck weighs 12,400 pounds and a typical race car weighs 3,000 pounds.”
Stewart went on to mention that the process of racing at this event was exciting! “I was just going to win the world record and to make Canada and Vegreville proud. I credit being dedicated, devoting a lot of time and being determined to achieve my goal.”
The advice Stewart would give others who want to achieve this goal is to practice a lot of racing in your hometown if you have a race track and just go for it. “It is not very expensive to put a truck together and it would be neat to see more people do it. When I first started doing this, I would travel to wherever there was a race. I tried to get as many runs in as I could. There was no chance of me winning any money at it. But I knew I would gain the experience.”
