One of Canada’s most dedicated Top Dragster competitors commences a next racing chapter…..
Around Southern Ontario, the name Tony Positano is known rather synonymously with Top Dragster class racing. Based from Courtice, Positano has been “at it” within the very fast bracket class for a dozen years now – but for 2021 – he has arguably reached his most serious level yet.
Positano, who is the founder and owner of a very successful high-end kitchen and bath design company (Brandom Kitchen & Baths), has debuted a new entry this summer — taking an already proven machine to a higher plane.
“Our new car is a 2014 RaceTech dragster (275 inch) which was formally raced by Lyle Williams,” Tony revealed. “We took our time — took it all apart and went through it end-to-end. Now it’s all nicely upgraded. For our motor program we are using an Al Billes 526 CID Hemi – which we acquired from Scott Wildgust.”
In fact Tony’s car is loaded up with Canadian content including but not limited to a transmission and converter by Hutch’s Transmissions (London), driveline components from Bear’s Performance (Windsor) and a rear end assembly by Lowdown Hot Rods (Cambridge).
Tony first debuted his new car during June and since then has been hard at refining it.

“Over my 12 years in the class I’ve learned a few things and have applied a lot of that to this new car,” he continued. “We did run our old Mike Bos car a lot (beginning in 2008) using naturally aspirated, nitrous injected and then supercharged motors. While that was a great car – we felt we just needed to get faster in the class — and this one certainly does that. It’s got so much more power — the ride is really exhilarating. It’s really amazing — I’ve been howling in the car a lot – LOL!”

Tony and his team have been pretty frequent runners with the car this summer with very solid performances as they set plans and pace for the future.
“Our objective remains within Canada for now,” he affirmed. “But when it’s allowable — we’d like to get back to some NHRA Top Dragster racing again in the USA. My dream has always been to win myself a “Wally” and I think this car will give me a better chance for that.”
Positano also confirmed the dragster is a perfect fit for some of the PDRA’s rapid 1/8th mile circuit racing too and some of their events would also be on the card – once USA/Canada border restrictions do lift.
“We’re refining things and look forward to the next steps and more racing opportunities,“ he concluded. “We’ll be all business in 2022.”

Post and photos by Bruce Biegler