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Choosing the most relevant Drag Illustrated 30 Under 30 is not an easy job, as magazine founder and editorial director Wes Buck has discovered. For the fifth edition of this list, featured in the magazine\u2019s December and 151st issue, the editors had to contend with more than 2,000 submissions, which made whittling the group down to 30 a very tough task.<\/p>\n
As always, the chosen group features a contingent of young drivers, crew members, tuners, fabricators, track owners, media members and other drag racing industry insiders. The 30 Under 30 list puts a spotlight on the rising stars in this sport and is comprised of prominent personalities from a variety of classes, series and countries, selected by a panel of Drag Illustrated staffers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud of the group we\u2019ve put together for the fifth annual 30 Under 30 list,\u201d Buck said to a packed crowd at the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show. \u201cIt\u2019s so critical to keep an eye on the future and look for the next group of stars and standouts who will keep drag racing moving forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a group more than capable of doing that, and these young talents represent so many great and amazing things going on in our sport,\u201d he continued. \u201cI can\u2019t help but smile when I look at this list and see what they\u2019ve all accomplished already in drag racing. It has me excited to see what all of their futures hold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gracing the December cover are standout drivers Gage Burch and Matt Dadas, who both had exceptional years on their chosen bracket racing scene. Burch, 19, won the $500,000-to-win SFG 500 in June; two months later 24-year-old Dadas reached the final round of the Fall Fling 500K. Both racers reached milestones that will give them a lifetime of memories.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTo be on the cover of Drag Illustrated for the 30 Under 30 issue, it\u2019s pretty surreal got be in this position,\u201d Dadas said. \u201cFor both of us, we\u2019re living the dream right now. You dream to be part of these moments.<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s stuff you can\u2019t replace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a dream season, that\u2019s for sure\u201d Burch stated. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible honor to be on the cover of Drag Illustrated, and this just adds [to] what has been a great year.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to Burch and Dadas, the 2019 30 Under 30 list includes: Austin Prock, Justin Carmack, Patrick Miller, Chase Freeman, Haley James, Cody Lane, Kellan Farmer, Bobby Ince Jr., Justin Jones, D.J. and Ryan McCain, Joey Haas, Preston \u201cPeeps\u201d Pennington, Chris Garner-Jones, Allie and Cody Bland, Julie Nataas, Kyle Bigley, John Dougherty, Victor Alvarez, Hunter Patton, Blake Copson, Cole Cummings, Jordan Vandergriff, Mike Mulaney, Tricia Musi, Matthew Lunsford, Will Smith, Kyle Cultrera and the late Joe Hunt.<\/p>\n
Drag Illustrated\u2019s editor-in-chief Nate Van Wagnen noted: \u201cFrom the very start of the Drag Illustrated 30 Under 30, it\u2019s been our goal to feature honors from every area of the sport, and that\u2019s been no different for our 2019 list. This is one of the most diverse lists yet, and continues to show the amount of young stars in our sport at every turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis group features top-level NHRA stars to up-and-coming bracket racers, sportsman racers, small-tire standouts, track managers, series promoters and everything in between,\u201d he emphasized. \u201cThis list is truly representative of the tremendous participation and success young people are having in the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
All honorees received a jacket commemorating their selection.<\/p>\n
Sponsored by IDIDIT, Moser Engineering, Thermo-Tec and Classic Graphix, the digital edition of the December 2019 Drag Illustrated 30 Under 30 issue is available without charge at digital.dragillustrated.com. Print issues are mailed to subscribers in mid-December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Choosing the most relevant Drag Illustrated 30 Under 30 is not an easy job, as magazine founder and editorial director Wes Buck has discovered.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":67917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,17,3470,5029,3399,22],"tags":[3811,5614,2,41,7],"class_list":["post-67915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-guest-column","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-30-under-30","tag-anne-proffit","tag-drag-racing","tag-news","tag-nhra"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/30-Under-30-2-e1576278099269.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-hFp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67915"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67967,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67915\/revisions\/67967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}