Drag Illustrated Issue 151, December 2019 | Page 74
30 UNDER 30 / 2019
The fact that two basic, run-of-the-mill brack-
et cars raced in the money round of two of the
richest-paying races in drag racing history isn’t
nearly as cool as the fact that they were driven
and owned by two not-so-average bracket racers.
Dadas, 24, is finishing up school while working
as a designer for his father, Jim. Burch, 19, is also
a college student, studying at the State College
of Florida.
Though they’re not like most hitters on the
big-money bracket racing scene, the two are very
similar themselves. They both grew up racing
Jr. Dragsters, Dadas here at Norwalk, about 20
minutes from his childhood home, and Burch at
Bradenton Motorsports Park and other tracks
near his home in Palmetto, Florida. Both have
fathers who raced as they were growing up and
helped them make the transition to “big cars.”
Both made that move before they were technically at the World Footbrake Challenge in Bristol a
few years ago, and their girlfriends’ friendship
brought the two closer still. They trusted each
other, but Burch hadn’t so much as sat in the
truck until they met up at the track Wednes-
day morning.
“It’s cool having Gage drive the stuff because
you don’t really have to tell him anything,” Dadas
says. “You just kind of let him loose – ‘Here you
go, try not to crash.’” “That’s literally what he
said – ‘I don’t really care what you do, just keep
it off the fence,’” Burch laughs.
Burch runnered up in Thursday’s $50,000 race,
going .001 under with a .003 reaction time. “We
knew we had a pretty decent horse for the race,”
Dadas says. “It clicked after that.”
Two days later, Burch says he really started
rolling in the third round of the SFG 500 main
event. The field of over 600 racers had been whit- kind of deal – or so we thought until the Fling and
Matt runnered up. It was a crazy, unbelievable
feeling, something you strive for and strive to get
back to every day.”
The obvious perk of the win was Burch collect-
ing his share of the winner’s purse, which was
bumped up to $525,000 going into the weekend
but split up when the race got down to 15 cars.
Aside from the cash, the duo is most proud of the
memories they made.
“There’s a picture of us five hanging out in the
trailer and it’s a bunch of 20-year-old kids racing
for $500,000,” Dadas says. “Our parents were
there, but they just let us go. I don’t think I saw
my mom or dad for five or six hours. We were
having fun, laughing, joking around. I’ve said it a
million times to a bunch of people, but you really
would’ve thought we were racing for 500 bucks
the way we were acting. We were having a blast.”
allowed to do so, winning major races before they
turned 16. That head start set the young men on
their current path to bracket racing hero status.
“It’s been a dream season, that’s for sure,” says
Burch, who rang in the new year with a $10,000
No Box and $1,500 Jr. Dragster double-up win
at the New Year’s Nationals at Palm Beach Inter-
national Raceway. Eleven hundred miles north
in frigid Ohio, Dadas was winning Dragway 42’s
Hangover Nationals in his street car. It was the
first sign of what turned out to be a remarkable
year for the two.
Burch went on to score several more double-up
victories in Florida through the early part of the
year, collecting trophies and respectable checks,
but those accomplishments are almost forgettable
compared to what transpired over the summer.
It all started with a text message chain where
Dadas agreed to let Burch drive his Ranger at the
SFG 500 at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin,
Michigan. The two were good friends who met tled down to a manageable number, allowing an
hour or so between rounds rather than the several
hours between the first couple rounds. “I just felt
like I was getting in a rhythm and everything
started clicking like it did in the 50,” Burch says.
“It just seemed like deja vu all over again.”
Burch worked his way through several rounds,
defeating NHRA Pro Stock star Jeg Coughlin
Jr. in the semifinals and 30 Under 30 Class of
2017 honoree Johnny “Bracket Racer” Ezell in
the final round.
After bringing the Ranger to a stop in the shut-
down area, Burch backed up back down the track
to the starting line, where he celebrated with
his girlfriend, Nichole Mediesis; Dadas and his
girlfriend, Carly Truhler; and her brother, Austin;
among a crowd of other friends and supporters.
“I really didn’t get that excited when I saw the
win light, then I backed down the track and once
I got out and saw Matt and everybody, we all went
crazy,” Burch says. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime Right after the SFG 500, the boys headed to
Bristol Dragway for the World Footbrake Chal-
lenge. Dadas returned to the seat of his Ranger
with its new target on the tailgate, and both driv-
ers ended up with a solid showing, getting down
to six cars in one of the $10,000 races.
The mountainside facility played host to the
other monumental weekend of the pair’s sea-
son, the Fall Fling 500K. Racing in the 10-year
celebration of promoter Kyle Seipel and Peter
Biondo’s Fling events, the two drivers found them-
selves racing for life-changing money yet again.
This time, though, it was Dadas in the hot seat.
Burch lost first round and the reentry round, leav-
ing the first-ever $500,000 race winner to watch
the second-ever $500,000 race as a spectator. “He
literally looked at me when he came back – I don’t
even think he was that mad – but he goes, ‘Well,
it’s up to you now,’” Dadas remembers.
Burch, three months removed from his big
win at this point, leaned on his experience in
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