Thunder Vallery Raceway in Noble, Oklahoma put on the richest no-prep drag race ever earlier this year and Sean Melton of Urban Hillbilly Action Videos was there to capture it all. He’s coming out with a DVD of the whole event and in anticipation of that he released this six minute teaser film that captures a small sampling of the nuttiness that went on at Noble during this race. Lots of you out there will yell and throw rocks at the no-prep deal and we get that. As you will see it is dangerous and completely unpredictable. In typical fashion there are 600 people at the starting line and opportunity for disaster to strike at any moment. All that being said, we’d much rather see these guys on a strip like this than on Main St doing the same thing. Can we at least agree on that?
Thunder Valley is a fine drag strip and we visited there with Drag Week in 2014. The place drew an awesome crowd from Drag Week and while most of the people seem to be smashed together on the starting line here, there are also a bunch of fans on the fence and in the bleachers, too. A race track’s primary objective is to put people in the gate and put on a show. It seems like this event did both of those things. With no clocks, no tree, and no prep, it is in many ways turning back the drag racing clock to a simpler time. Granted, the cars are some of the most powerful door slammers in the country so the equation isn’t exactly balanced but you get where we are going anyway.
Love no-prep racing or hate it, remember that participation is not mandatory and by all means if you think it is bad, don’t do it. As stated earlier, we’d much rather see these guys hammering down a drag strip with walls and a safety crew than through the front window of a local coffee shop, into a van load of nuns, or endangering the lives of innocent people on the street. Melton reports that lots of the “Street Outlaws” crew was present and participating and that may have helped get the interest level cranked up as well. Drag racing the old school way with new school iron leads to a couple things. Thrills, chills, and spills! See all three here!
Oh, one last thing. Pretty interesting about how hard these guys can stick them at the hit but down track is where the weirdness gets started. Huge wheelstands, gentle landings and then a wrestling match to keep most of these things in a straight line at the stripe. Woah mamma!
