So I guess this is “international drag racing day” here at BangShift. From the all wheel drive insane hot rod in Poland to the announcement that India will have its first dedicated drag strip soon, it is a good day to be following the sport on any level.
For starters we should mention that India has drag racing, and lots of it. What they do not have is a dedicated, 100% constructed for the purpose, drag strip. That is about to change as the plan is to build a 1-kilometer long strip (400m racing surface 600m shut down) and build it to the standards and practices of the NHRA manual. This will be the third international strip that has been constructed with an assist or at leas consultation through the NHRA Worldwide Network which was an initiative announced years ago to foster the construction of dedicated drag racing facilities in places around the globe. This track us joining facilities in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi as part of the NHRA Worldwide Network. Outside of the construction, the NHRA will also work with the facility on training their safety people, setting up a schedule and other aspects of track operations.
Hyderabad, Telangana is where the track will be built and if you are like us and not really up on your Indian geography we can tell you that the location is in the middle of the county but on the southern half. Basically if you look at the area of India where the country starts to taper into more of a point, it is there.
The effort to get a track built as spearheaded by Nagaraja Katellu, who is the operator of Yash Motorsports.The company has offices in both the USA and India and is looking to greatly expand the world of motorsports in that part of the world. stock car and drag racing are the two ways they want to do that. The massive country has a huge population and we’re guessing there is a ripe business opportunity to get in on the ground floor of building the motorsports culture in India.
Interesting stuff if you ask us!
HERE’S THE LINK TO THE NEWS STORY ANNOUNCING THE STRIP
Who is going to be the title sponsor of the race, 7-11 or Wawa?
Exciting to see this kind of growth in the sport! This is what NHRA needs to start making a bigger impact on the motorsports world and find new mainstream audiences.
Just wait until NHRA starts outsourcing their national events to India.
Who cares!
After all the nhra has done to continually hurt the sport, the fans and the racers, year after year. At the rate that nhra continues to loose its fan, participant and sponsor base(s)………… they actually believe that new fans, participants and sponsors can be generated faster than they are loosing all of these.
At this point, I’m done. I was done several years ago but after nhra’s recent move to eliminate Chad’s BANGSHIFT live streaming of the nostalgia events at “the patch”………. nhra will never get a dime of my money or my time watching on TV. I’m talking NEVER, that is the only way any of us will have a chance of helping the nhra to understand who butters their bread and to start thinking with just a little common sense. Hit them harder in the wallet with a BOYCOTT! That is what they deserve. Fans of the past present and most importantly the future have better things to do with their time and money!
The first match race at India’s new drag strip will actually be between a snake and a mongoose. Sorry Don and Tom, I felt it was appropriate for the article.