Local drag racer keeps winning

WALLA WALLA - Racing at the Walla Walla Drag Strip continues to fill the trophy case for Medical Lake's Justin Cooper.

On June 23, he landed his 28th "Wally" trophy with a win in the Forest Fincher Fabrication sponsored National Hot Rod Association Division-6 Super Quick Series event. A "Wally" is the trophy named for the founder of NHRA, Wally Parks.

Cooper, driving a dragster he now owns ran a 4.967 elapsed time on a dial-in of 4.95 to beat Jeremy Waterman in the finals by .008 of a second on the eighth-mile track.

Over the course of the 660-foot track, the margin of victory is about a foot-and-a-half, Cooper said, calling each run he makes down the track, "A high-speed chess match."

In a matter of less than five seconds Cooper must calculate his speed, that of his opponent and whether he will, in fact, go quicker than 4.95 seconds. In that case, even if he beat the other driver to the finish line Cooper would lose due to bracket drag racing's "breakout rule."

To evenly match totally different cars, drivers establish a "dial-in" time in which they think they will travel the track. Dial-ins are put into the starting system giving one driver a head start and making the other play catch up at the end.

Exceed that time and you lose.

But Cooper has not done much losing when he makes the three-hour trek to wine country to run the track that is part of the Walla Walla Airport.

Cooper once chased competition across the NHRA's Division Six landscape where six times a year he would face off against the best racers in the region. He earned the bulk of his "Wally's" with wins at just about every track from Boise, Idaho to Woodburn, Oregon.

But COVID changed that.

Like most everything in 2020, his local track, Spokane County Raceway, closed. Then it was sold to the Kalispel Tribe and went dark for a while.

When things began to open in 2021, Walla Walla proved to be the closest place to race. And Cooper made the most of it taking his car to race in both Super Pro and Pro classes. Simple adjustments in equipment allowed him to race both and do well at the same time.

It did not take long but Cooper won both classes in a day and he was hooked. At season's end Cooper was crowned points champ in both Super Pro and Pro, a distinction that also comes with a handsome perk.

"You win the season, your reward is free entry in that class the next year," Cooper said.

The price of diesel fuel for his tow rig became "outrageous" as Cooper described it which priced him out of a return to regional racing.

Ann additional benefit that has come from racing at Walla Walla is that it is more of family deal involving his father Steven and sister Stephanie Frisch.

The Cooper caravan is all Chrysler/Plymouth with Justin and his sister in Satellites while dad wheels a 1966 Belvedere II. Stephanie battled her brother to edge him for the 2022 Walla Walla title.

"She ended up winning the championship by one round over me," Cooper said.

Cooper is 35-year-old maintenance mechanic for the state of Washington with work focusing on keeping Eastern State Hospital and Lakeland Village running.