For as long as he can remember, Jamie Madison has wanted to win a Wally.

The Wally Trophy, named after National Hot Rod Association founder Wally Parks, is given to winners of NHRA national events. Madison watched many drag racers win them as a young boy when he was sitting in the stands at national events in Montreal, Canada.

In late June, he found himself sitting in the cockpit of his Super Comp dragster, with only a quarter-mile standing between him and a Wally.

It was a position Madison had never been in before, except for in his nightmares.

“I was actually having nightmares thinking that I got to the final round — and I keep having the nightmares, even to this day — I get to the final, but I lose in the final,” the 45-year-old Canton native said. “It still happens to me now. But I was scared of that. I was like, ‘Man, I finally made it to the final and here’s my chance to win this.’ And you don’t know if you’re ever going to get back to that again.”

Madison has been participating in drag racing for 18 years, though his whole career hasn’t been spent at the NHRA level — he only races against, in his words, “the best of the best,” a couple times a year. The rest of the season he spends at New Oxford Dragway, racing his street-division Ford Mustang.

He’s won on the local scene before, but the farthest he had ever advanced at an NHRA national event was the quarterfinals, which is the fifth of seven possible rounds.

On June 21, however, Madison broke a new barrier in his career. He made it to that seventh round at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire, which he considers his home track when racing his Super Comp dragster, in an NHRA Lucas Oil Division 1 event.

In the biggest race of his career. His dreams were realized, his nightmares ignored.

“Well, when I went down through the course and I looked over — and they have a little ‘win’ light on each side of the track, and usually you know if you won or you lost because it either lights or it don’t. And I thought I saw it light up, but it was very sunny day that day, so I wasn’t sure if it was a reflection or if it didn’t light,” Madison said. “And so I came around to come up the return road and I shut the motor off, and the opponent (Shawn Fricke of New Jersey) pulled up beside me and I asked him if he had won, and he said, ‘No, you did.’ And I said, ‘Really?’ I don’t know, I had so many thoughts going through my head I didn’t really know.”

As Madison continued up the return road, tears rolling down his cheeks, he was met by his brother, Doug “Dougie” Marsters Jr., who was shaking his hands in celebration. The celebration then turned to his mother and stepfather, Paula and Doug Marsters, who own Madison’s dragster, along with his sister, Miranda Marsters.

“It was such an emotional thing. A very joyful, emotional moment,” Madison said.

Madison has had big wins before, namely winning an Ironman Trophy, which is the International Hot Rod Association’s version of the Wally, twice 10 years ago. And Dougie Marsters won a Wally of his own (driving a car he owns himself) three years ago at Lebanon Valley, New York.

Madison said he knew he was capable of winning a Wally, but he wasn’t sure if he ever would.

That he finally won it a few weeks ago was even the more against-the-odds.

Initially, Madison wasn’t even sure if the event at New England Dragway would even happen, due to the coronavirus pandemic. A schedule that was supposed to start in April saw event after event get canceled. Then, two weeks before the event at Epping, the team found out that it was still on.

“We were thrashing around and everything because we weren’t ready,” Madison said. “We had some stuff to do to the cars in order to get going, so it was a two-week deal.”

Then there was driving the dragster just right through six rounds to advance to the final. Madison said he didn’t look who pulled up next to him in each of those rounds, but couldn’t help himself in his first final. When he saw Fricke’s car he knew he was facing, he said, “a formidable opponent, in the way that he’s a former divisional champion as well as a many-time event winner.”

“To go against this guy, it’s kind of like David vs. Goliath,” Madison said. “Not that I don’t have good equipment, but he’s got the best of the best, you know, top-notch.”

Madison said he knew by about 1,000 feet of the 1,320-foot track that he had a good shot of winning. His margin of victory was three-thousandths of a second (8.918 to 8.921).

Madison said he couldn’t have done it without his family, with everyone playing a part on the Marsters Racing team.

“They’re the nucleus of the team. Without them it just doesn’t happen,” he said. “There is no me without them.”

He also said the support of his fiancee, Nicole Dionne, helped him finally reach his career apex.

“To win this Wally, which is the one I’ve always wanted, further along here in the career, I don’t know, it kind of brings everything full-circle, I guess,” Madison said. “I can kind of feel like I’ve accomplished everything I could have ever wanted to accomplish.”

“If we never win another one at least I got one. That was the goal,” he added. “I’m not ready to quit yet, but if it comes a time where I have to, I’ve done what I wanted to do.”

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