Hot Rod Drag Week On And Racing Back To Martin 131 Dragway Friday
For car guys and gear heads, this is about a good as it gets. Picture it. You've got a street-legal race, and in this competition, you drive it on the street. That's HOT ROD Drag Week, a competition for both performance and endurance.
The racing component of this event breaks out this way: "Racers in nine different categories, all of them pre-entered in the most exclusive field in motorsports, will make five time runs at four race tracks with the quickest average time determining champions in the Unlimited, Ultimate Iron, Pro Street, Modified, Super Street, Street Race, Gasser, Hot Rod and Street Machine categories."
But here's the wrinkle: The racers have to drive those same race cars from one venue to the next on specified streets and highway routes, without any help from any support vehicles. So these specialized hot rods are avoiding not only potholes and winding roads, but they have to extra super careful because they're being routed through school zones and construction zones, not to mention everyday traffic, and oh, it's a trip of approximately 1000 miles.
Drag Week started Monday (Sept. 13th) at Martin's US 131 Motor Sports Park. After Monday, it was off to Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio (Tuesday), then from there to Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis (Sept. 15th) and Byron, IL., Dragway (Sept. 16), before returning to US 131 in Martin on Friday.
The driver to look out for is Lake Orion's (Michigan) Tom Bailey and his 1969 Camaro. Bailey is referred to as the "King of the Street". That Camaro is a remarkable car. It was the first to break both the 6.00 second and 250 mph barriers during Drag Week and had to be almost completely rebuilt after almost burning up at an exhibition in Florida.
The competitors are back Friday morning, with gates opening at 8 am in Martin, and racing beginning at 10am.
HOT ROD Drag Week at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan
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