By Brandon Wright, Times Correspondent
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
VALRICO
Kelsey Lay hopped onto a bicycle when she was a little girl and began pedaling around the neighborhood. The problem?
Not fast enough.
Lay then climbed into a go-cart a few years later, speeding around tracks in Central Florida. The problem?
Not fast enough.
She received a junior dragster on her 17th birthday, a car capable of traveling 80 mph. The problem?
Not fast enough.
"I just have a need for speed," said Lay, a Bloomingdale High senior. "I always want to go faster."
Lay will be doing just that as she competes in Gainesville's 42nd Annual Gatornationals today through Sunday. Driving a Super Comp dragster that tops out at nearly 200 mph, Lay, who turned 18 a day ago, is the youngest driver ever to qualify for a Super Comp national event.
"Being able to go up there and race against some of the best competition in my rookie season is such an honor," Lay said. "It's the opportunity of a lifetime."
While most girls her age are picking out prom dresses, Lay will be attempting to pick apart competition two to three times her age. But the age difference suits Lay just fine.
"Some of (the drivers) I race against are old enough to be my dad," she said, "but I really enjoy racing them because of the maturity level. They are more positive and after a race you just congratulate each other and shake hands."
Lay reached the Super Comp level after a brief stint racing junior dragsters. After about three months at that level, Lay and her father, Fred, felt she was ready to handle a car capable of going more than twice the speed of a junior dragster.
"As a parent, you recognize there is danger involved in this sport, but first and foremost, we are about safety," he said. "But she has a passion for racing that you can see in her eyes. And she's very good at it."
Fred Lay raced various types of vehicles and introduced his daughter to the sport at a young age.
"She took to the whole atmosphere right away," he said.
After getting a taste of the junior dragsters, Lay earned her National Hot Rod Association license after graduating from Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School in Gainesville. In addition to rocketing down a quarter-mile drag strip, Lay plays flag football, is a member of the National Honor Society and is the drum major at Bloomingdale. She has been accepted to the University of Tampa to study marketing and business communication.
"Some of my friends think it's a little intimidating that I race," she said, "but I don't ever want to be treated any different. I have a wide variety of friends and I'm a pretty normal kid, I think."
You can also add role model to Lay's list of achievements. She routinely donates her time to charity, speaks to youth groups and has a keen understanding of her impact on others.
"She realizes that she can't tell people not to do something that she is doing," Fred Lay said. "She has a message to get across and doesn't want to set a bad example."
And that means avoiding common teenager pitfalls like speeding.
"I have zero tickets," Lay said with a chuckle. "Everything would be taken away if I did. I go around talking to kids and telling them if they want to race, come out to a track. How would that look if I was speeding around town? You have to do what you say."
Although Lay will be flying up and down a track with about 1,000 horsepower under the hood this weekend, she insists she's not an adrenaline junkie. Lay "hates" roller coasters with big drops and has "absolutely no interest" in jumping out of an airplane.
"I'll stick to drag racing," she said.
Brandon Wright can be reached at hillsnews@sptimes.com.