'Coolest teachers on the block': Duffy girls drag racing for 15 years
Picture this: you're in grade school and your teacher brings a race car for everyone to see.
"I had my very first classroom in Harrow, and I brought my race car to school for the entire school." said Chelsie Duffy who is a teacher by day and a drag car racer in her spare time.
"I've had kids that I've taught come to the racetrack in the middle of the summer to see me, which is kind of cool."
"We like to think we're the coolest teachers on the block," Chelsie's sister Carlie, also a teacher, said with a laugh.
The sisters make up Duffy Girls Racing and they've been hauling the mail (running at top speed) for 15 years. Carlie got behind the wheel of a junior dragster at nine, while Chelsie started when she was 15. They followed in the footsteps of their dad.
"My dad got into it first and we went like when we were kids too. We went as the spectators and then he got into it and immediate I would even say the same year he got Chelsie into it," Carlie explained, "And then I was the following season and the rest was history."
The Duffy's grew up racing at Grand Bend. For the last three or four years, they've taken the show on the road to the U.S., at tracks like Mid-Michigan Motorplex and US 131, where there are more cars and tougher competition.
"It's a dying sport in Canada, unfortunately," Carlie said. "Ever since Covid, basically, I feel like in Covid things took a turn."
Down south, they're often the only women in the lanes, and some of their opponents have been racing longer than the sisters have been alive.
"We're racing against people our age to 60, 70 years old that have been doing it for 50 years," Carlie said. "Yeah, it's a male dominant sport, we've held our own for sure."
The race cars that can hit 145 miles an hour at full throttle and cover an eighth of a mile in 4.75 seconds.
"It's all mental. It's such a mental game," Carlie said. "You can you can beat yourself before you even hit the track."
What is the buildup to the green light like?
"You're just so focused in the moment. You don't hear anything behind you. All you're waiting
for is that green light." Chelsie said.
And when the light goes green?
"Oh, the best feeling. Especially when you know you leave and have a good light," She said.
The sisters had only about two weekends off this year. Their season ended last weekend but their passion for the sport continues to race through them.
"If I could do it all my life, I do it all my life," Carlie said. "I definitely don't see an end point any time soon."