We mentioned that a BangShifter from Malta emailed us with a video tip earlier today. In his email he intimated that there were lots of cool cars on the tiny island nation and that the hot rodding culture was going strong. Of course that led us to the magic closet of wonder known as YouTube to dig up some cool videos. As it turns out, the island has a kick ass drag strip and they run actual top fuel cars there. No foolin’.

The racing videos below were shot at Hal Far Raceway, the lone and well appointed strip on the island of Malta. Hell, most of you may not even know where Malta is! The 122 square mile island is home to about 425,000 people which is not all that many people when you look at even medium sized cities like Boston which has a population of roughly 640,000 people. The drag strip is called Hal Far Raceway for a very good reason, it was originally called RAF Hal Far, a British air base constructed in the 1920s. During WWII the place was peppered with bombs from the Axis powers but was never knocked all the way out of commission and served as a vital base for the Allies in the Mediterranean sea. In 1979 the base was given over to the government of Malta and in the 1980s drag racing started there. The track has evolved from being “just a runway” into a great place with permanent structures, walls, a full timing system, scoreboards, and all the bells and whistles needed to prep it maintain it correctly. The place is sanctioned by the Malta Drag Racing Association.

We think that it is completely bad ass that this place exists and at the level it does. There are population centers in America with way more people that don’t have the interest necessary to keep places open. The Maltese hot rodders get it!

The track is a quarter mile in length for more classes but in the first video it looks like top fuel cars run 1,000′ judging by their elapsed times and speeds.

HERE’S A COLLECTION OF MALTESE DRAG RACING VIDEOS FROM HAL FAR RACEWAY!

Four wheels off the ground wheelie!

Top Fuel cars

TURBO FOUR BANGER DRAGSTER RUNNING 7s

Awesome arial view of the track from a flying camera