[h=2]IHRA: Driver snapshot - Emily Million[/h] Steven Cole Smith (words and image)

From nothing more than looking at the long list of Junior Dragster racers at the IHRA World Finals at Memphis International Raceway, there's no question the comparatively young – pun intended – series is among the healthiest in all of drag racing.
And the series is remarkably appealing to female competitors. Close to a quarter of the field was made up of female drivers, most hoping to someday walk through the door opened decades ago by pioneers like Shirley Muldowney, who won her first title with an IHRA victory, and Bunny Burkett, 1986 IHRA world champion.
Even more impressive: Three of the four finalists in the Summit SuperSeries and the Tournament of Champions at MIR were girls. Among them: 15-year-old Emily Million, runner-up in the Summit SuperSeries Junior Dragster series. Emily looks like any teen, but her skill took her just one round away from taking the grand prize – a custom-built JR Race Car Junior Dragster featuring custom paint from Imagine That Customs, $3,000 from Summit Racing Equipment, the World Championship Ironman Trophy and a diamond ring.
But if Emily was disappointed, she sure didn't show it. "I had no idea we'd do this well," said the Castlewood, Virginia resident, whose IHRA home track is Elk Creek Dragway in Wyethville, Virginia. Out of 43 Junior Dragsters who earned points at Elk Creek this year, Emily was second, despite the fact that she has been racing five years, only two of them full-time.
Do her friends thing it's a strange way to spend her weekends? It's really not a topic of frequent conversation, she said: "I'm pretty much the only one in Castlewood who does it."
And she isn't through. When her time in Juniors is up, "I'd really like to race big dragsters – maybe Super Pro," she said.
Why are female drivers so effective in drag racing? Emily isn't certain, but one thing is for sure: "The car doesn't know if it's a boy or a girl behind the wheel."