Hot Rod Magazine Drag Week 2012 presented by Gear Vendors heads into the home stretch today, literally. We’ll be racing all morning and into the afternoon at Memphis International Raceway and then heading out for a 400 mile trip back to Tulsa for the finals tomorrow. Today’s course, Memphis International Raceway is totally appropriate for the 2012 Drag Week because it was the scene of the first Hot Rod Magazine Fastest Street Car Shootout, some 20 years ago. Back in 1992 competitors had to drive their cars some 30 miles through the grounds of the facility and then race. Many cars puked all over themselves and were not able to compete and while the ones that did were amazingly quick for the day, they’d all be overshadowed by this year’s mind boggling field.
Memphis International Raceway may not sound familiar to you, but Memphis Motorsports Park should as it was the track’s former name. MMP was the host of the Hot Rod Magazine Pump Gas Drags which was the final evolutionary step in the street legal drag racing genre for Hot Rod before Drag Week was conceptualized and first run in 2005. The track has had some tough recent history. MIR actually closed down in 2009 after the company which owned the facility, Dover Motorsports” decided that it could no longer afford to take the financial losses associated with operating the place. The property was auctioned off in later 2010 and reopened in 2011 by the same ownership group that took control of Palm Beach International Raceway in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The facility is 540-feet above sea level, has a 660′ concrete launch pad, is currently IHRA sanctioned, and was a long time NHRA national event track hosting the ever popular “Mid-South Nationals”. Normally once drag strips close, their return to function is never actually realized. Like some sort of happy, feel good zombie story Memphis rose back from the dead and is now making its way into the drag racing public’s lexicon again.
After yesterday’s fantastic performances at Thunder Road Raceway Park in Louisiana, we’re hoping for a great surface and big elapsed times today!
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As a long time spectator and drag racer at MIR let me put a little more detail into why it closed (not that any of you care but i just want to get it out there). Back in the late 90s when it was “Motorsports Park” They had a VERY successful Dirt track that was packed everyfriday night as well as a dragstrip that was packed everysaturday……Then these idiots decided they would close the dirt track and build a “Asphalt nascar track”..well now comes the part where they lose money. They get this track built get nascar in here and after they give away half the tickets and pay Nascar $25,000 for the” priviledge” of having a nascar sanctioned serious theres no money to be made. When you consider spending millions of dollars for a facility that only holds 2 events a year and loses money on those……Well there you have The REST OF THE STORY….I said all that to say this the new people at the track are GREAT it may be the best thing that ever happen to that track….
BadAssVega
The racers in memphis will be so lucky if they do half what they did at Palm Beach. Those guys transformed that place into any gearheads dream place from drag racing to gokart. Glad to see another place get reopened instead of the trend of shutting down. Need to get some younger guys away from the video games and get some busted knuckles and support more tracks across the U.S.A.