(Words and Photos by Joe Grippo) The holidays are over, it is the middle of winter and the dragstrips here in the northeast will be closed for a few more months, it’s a pretty bleak time for many of us Bangshifters. One glimmer of happiness in this season of despair is the DragFest Indoor Drag Racing Showcase. DragFest is an indoor car show with a decidedly drag racing flavor. Most indoor shows are for the show car crowd, with their chromed, painted and polished up trailer queens vying for a plastic and marble trinket. That’s cool and all, but this show features Drag Cars. The cars you usually see on the strip doing burnouts, hanging the hoops high, and screaming down track looking for that win light. In this environment the cars are quiet and static, but this affords the unique opportunity to dig into the details of these machines and talk to the owners, builders, and drivers away from the intensity of the between round thrashes. Cool deal.
The DragFest is held each year at the Lebanon, Pennsylvania Convention Center and is part of the Motorama series of events. While there is a definite nostalgic lean to the show, a bunch of modern bracket cars and index racers were in attendance. Funny Cars, Dragsters, Door Cars, Altereds…all the good stuff! Being a Motorama show. A large amount of show cars and trucks were on display as well. Pro Streeters, Street Rods, Street Machines, and wild trucks, certainly something for everyone. Hell, there was even some bitchin’ stuff in the parking lot! Add in some cool venders like VP Race Fuels, and a few dudes offering up diecast cars and all sorts of memorabilia plus local tracks like Maple Grove Raceway and South Mountain Raceway handing out their 2023 race schedules, and it was a great way to remind yourself that springtime is coming.
Hang in there…
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Chad this is Barry Hostetter one of the three owners of Motorama I don’t know if I’ve ever seen better coverage for a drag Fest show your professional and thank you very much for your pictures and write up it was our best show of a drag Fest nature so far in our Short history lot of the credit goes to Andy Goodman and Dan Swisher they are the gurus of setting up the shows thank you again