Like many teenage boys, Tyler Wudarczyk loves to be at the wheel of a speeding car.

Instead of traffic tickets, though, Wudarczyk is collecting trophies. The 17-year-old Free State High School senior has been racking up victories on the National Hot Rod Assn.’s junior circuit, blazing down eighth-mile tracks in his alcohol-fueled dragster.

“I just love going fast,” said Wudarczyk, whose father, Tim, has been racing for 30 years. “I’ve played other normal sports — basketball, football, hockey, that stuff — but this is what I’ve grown up around.”

This year, Wudarczyk has collected five first-place finishes, three second-places, and he has made the semifinal round of competitions four other times.

“This year’s been my breakout year,” Wudarczyk said last week.

He’s been around cars his entire life. His father owns A-1 Automotive, and competes in a 1963 Corvette in the NHRA’s stock car division.

“I’ve been going to races since I was 3.” Wudarczyk said.

The son got his first taste of competitive racing when he was 5 years old. Wudarczyk started entering “midget car” races that year — but walked away soon after a frightening wreck.

“I got scared,” Wudarczyk said.

Tyler Wudarczyk, a Free State High School senior, competes in drag racing. This weekend will be his last race in the junior division of the National Hot Rod Assn.; then he plans to move on to stock car racing.

He decided he wanted to return to racing when he was 8; NHRA’s junior circuit features drivers between 8 and 17 years old. But his parents made him wait until he was 12, then gave him his car — emblazoned with Wudarczyk’s nickname, “T-Bone” — for Christmas.

Wudarczyk has been racing ever since, but 2003 has been a particularly good year for him. He said he’d paid closer attention to the details of his sport.

“I knew this is my last year (as a junior competitor), and I knew I wanted to be good,” he said. “I knew I had the potential to be the track champion I am now.”

Drag racing isn’t just a local sport. Wudarczyk has competed across the nation, racing on tracks in Denver, St. Louis and Chicago. He has a special place in his heart for a track close to home, though: Topeka’s Heartland Park.

“The track I’ve done best at is Topeka,” Wudarczyk said. “Topeka’s been really good to me.”

Wudarczyk has one more weekend of junior racing, next week at the Gateway National Raceway in St. Louis. But he’s already looking ahead to the future: He bought a 1989 Camaro that he plans to fix up for NHRA stock car racing.

But he said the sport would likely remain a high-speed hobby. Making a living at drag racing, he said, requires sponsorship and week-in, week-out victories on the circuit.

“You have to have the right situation,” Wudarczyk said. “The competition’s so tough at the next level, it’s tough to make a living at it. I’d like to think I could do it, someday.”

His family often follows him to the track. His father helps start the car for races, while his mother and sisters watch.

“At times it can be scary, especially when somebody wrecks in front of him,” said his older sister, Ashley Wehr. “But we’ve been raised around it our whole lives … we love it. It’s fun.”

Wudarczyk intends to keep having fun.

“I think,” he said, “I’m only going to get better.”