EPPING — Gov. Chris Sununu knows how to win a political race, but he got smoked by the competition when he climbed into the driver’s seat to drag race in a school bus.
In his first time on the drag strip, Sununu lost to New Hampshire’s 2017 “Teacher of the Year” Tate Aldrich in the final round of Saturday’s 2nd annual New Hampshire Lottery Educational Cup Challenge.
The unusual race held at New England Dragway featured mini school buses jetting down the drag strip in a friendly competition to raise awareness of the $1.7 billion the New Hampshire Lottery has contributed to education in the state.
Aldrich claimed victory after crossing the finish line with a time of 19.293 seconds. He beat the governor’s 20.178-second finish.
The win came as a surprise to Aldrich, an English teacher from Kingswood Regional High School in Wolfeboro who’s never raced a vehicle and never thought his “Teacher of the Year” title would put him behind the wheel in a bus race.
He wasn’t sure how fast he drove to win. He just gunned it and never looked at the speedometer.
“I’m totally out of my element, but I guess that’s when learning happens,” said Aldrich, who taught at Laconia High School for several years before joining Kingswood for the upcoming school year.
The first round of competition featured Aldrich against reigning champion Charlie McIntyre, executive director of the New Hampshire Lottery, and Sununu versus Scott “Roadkill” McMullen from WHEB and Rock 101’s “Greg and the Morning Buzz.”
Aldrich beat McIntyre and Sununu squashed McMullen.