The province of Alberta is well known for it’s per capita truck population and one famous provincial racer has embraced a bit of just that….
Eddy Plaizier – a quicker and faster focus in 2017…
Eddy Plaizier, who is at the forefront of arguably one of Canada’s most impressive multi-car family drag racing operations, has decided to pick up the pace this 2017 season. Following an off season acquisition, the long time Sherwood Park-based driver has ventured into the quicker ranks of Top Sportsman racing, debuting a slick Chevy S-10 earlier this season.
Eddy is now behind the controls of a former Pro Stock Truck which had been previously raced by fellow “Edmontonian” Geordie Castle.
“This truck is a 2004 model built by Rick Jones – it was his Pro Stock truck #14,” Plaizier confirmed. “After we got it (late last year) we went though it from front to back over the winter —rewired it and applied a lot of our own team touches. We did have a spare engine already at our disposal — a 637 CID (built by Ryan Bell). So we put a pair of Brazwell dual carbs on that and after it was all ready – we made our debut a Phoenix earlier this season.”
Eddy Plaizier can trace his racing credentials all the way back to about 1995 when he began campaigning his car show quality 1948 Anglia which he still possesses. But now in retrospect, for Eddy, who had since then carved most of his racing reputation within the NHRA target index classes, this move to Top Sportsman class racing was probably a next logical step for his career.
Eddy Plaizier has added a former Pro Stock Truck to his race team’s equation.
“I did do some Top Dragster class racing a while back (2008-09)— but racing index cars is certainly where I cut my teeth,” he continued. “But over the last year or so my son Casey showed both intent and great capability tuning the Super Gas Corvette I was driving. I realized he’s a natural with that car — so I saw an opportunity to both expand our team and go a new personal direction myself. We have also added in a new Top Dragster for my daughter Francesca— so having a Top Sportsman car to race in parallel with that – just made a lot of sense.”
Geordie Castle raced the truck for a few seasons locally at Castrol Raceway prior to last off-season’s acquisition.
The 2017 racing season will see the very popular family highly active in drag racing – primarily within the NHRA Pacific Northwest region. They will show at most NHRA events equipped with three machines — Eddy’s new truck, a Pro-charged Spitzer dragster raced by Francesca and Casey in the team’s ’63 Corvette. And if history tells us anything – fans can look for very probable positive results from all three — evidenced by Eddy being a 2015 Jegs All Stars participant, Frankie finishing 2nd in NHRA Division Six TD points in 2016 (her first year in the category) and Casey, who has already racked up a big S/G win this season (during the Las Vegas NHRA Regional event a month ago — for more see link: HERE)
“I’m looking forward to the new challenge with the TS truck and having a good season,” Eddy added. “We’ll be at all the NHRA Division Six events and max out our points at some D7 races. We have 5 NHRA nationals planned — we’re going to chase the points seriously and see where we can end up.”
The Plaizier Racing team has a very impressive and important line-up of associates that back them including: Impact Powder Coatings, Thompson Brothers Construction, Ace Manufacturing, RAD Torque Machine, Stealth Graphics, Iron Garage and GDT Trading.
Post and photos by Bruce Biegler
