A recent trip to the Tampa, Florida area gave me the chance to visit a drag strip I had never been to before. The strip is Lakeland Dragway, an eighth-mile track that runs as an outlaw, or unsanctioned facility. Beholden to no larger sanctioning body, this place is a true throwback. It is gritty and raw. If we’re comparing it to a car, it would be a rat rod. That’s not a put down, unless you hate rat rods. In that case, you’d be better suited to staying within the comfy confines of NHRA national event facilities for all of your drag racing.
There are lots of reasons to love a small outlaw track. The first is sheer simplicity. Upon pulling up to the gate one is confronted with a large sign reading:
NO INSURANCE
ENTER AT OWN RISK
Imagine that! Talk about laying it right on the table. While we’re sure some lawyer would be able to work his way around that sign and the waiver that everyone signs on the way into the place, it was both shocking to me and strangely appealing. I’ve never bitched, complained, or questioned measures taken to protect racers and spectators. They are really the foundation that the sport is based on. Making sure everyone that comes to the track leaves in the same shape they arrived in only makes sense.
Then I saw the sign. It gave me this strange thrill knowing that I was headed into this place where there wasn’t a safety net. Stupid? Perhaps, but then again, In all of the strips I have been to, not one of them (and there have been several outlaws in there) has come right out and said, “NO INSURANCE”. The “enter at your own risk” part is pretty standard fare, but the admission that you were on your own in the event of emergency was new.
The track itself struck me as being very short in total length. I’d have to guess that there isn’t much more than 1000-feet to get your stuff hauled down after a lap. The end of the course had a red light alerting drivers that they were about to wreck headlong into what appeared to be a big dirt berm if they didn’t turn out.
It was in the upper 30 degree range the night I was there. I arrived before the racing action started and had convinced myself that between the facility and the weather, the track was going to be an asphalt ice skating rink. It wasn’t going to create any records, but the track had some teeth in it.
The hot dogs were two bucks a piece and nearly warm. Being the freak that I am, I’d take a shitty drag strip dog over a piece of prime steak any day of the week.
Tech inspection seemed to not exist. People had tech cards, but there was no “tech line” and by all appearances, the dude at the fuel shack was also the chief tech inspector and perhaps the concession stand cook as well.
Being that I and the other guys I was with were all over the age of 21 we didn’t have to worry about the “No Underage Drinking Allowed” sign. We were free to roam the pits and stands with our case of Bud Light. That was a first for me too. I told the other fellows that we may have to stow the beers if an official saw us drinking them in the stands and they weren’t from his concession stand. That turned out to be a non-issue.
As far as the cars go, there was some neat stuff. All the videos I had seen of the track on YouTube seemed to feature imports, so I was expecting that crowd. As is usually the case, I was wrong. There was some healthy nitrous fed stuff including a Fox-bodied Mustang that started in the left lane and ended in the right lane about four times in a row before he backed off of the nitrous. He provided some entertainment! A late 1930s Chevy with a big motor on nitrous laid down some 300ft burnouts in an attempt to hammer the car, but he also got loose about 100-150ft down the strip on multiple occasions.
A couple of rotary powered machines exploded in spectacular fashion much to the delight of my companions who are guys who dig cars but had never been to the strip before. They belched fire pretty well, and that got the attention of my group.
The whole time I was there I just kept thinking about drag racing and how lots of us (me included) like to yell about how the sport has been sanitized, pasteurized, and pushed more than a few zip codes up town in the last several years. Lakeland provides the Yin to that Yang and I’m not going to lie, I had a great time at the place. For every zMax Dragway, there needs to be at least one Lakeland (probably two). Places where the facility is merely that, a place with a gate and a drag strip, not somewhere with marble tile in the guest suites, Veggie burgers in the concession, and $8.00 beers.
Lakeland Dragway’s 30-40 car test n’ tune night provided the perfect end to my drag racing year. Having hit several big events this season at well known facilities, this night acted as a fine reminder as to why I love the hell out of the drags. In the simplest form, there isn’t a more intimate, bombastic motorsport on Earth. Two cars on a dimly lit stretch of asphalt hurtling into the darkness. It’s damned near poetic.
Thanks for reading,
Brian
