Quarter-mile aficionados know a thing or two about the Hot Rod Drag Week, but sometimes these events are just too big, costly, or lengthy for “regular” dragstrip folk. No worries, though; there are solutions to the predicament.
Examples are wide range, but here is the videographer behind the Race Your Ride account on YouTube bringing us the lovely story of “One Guys Garage's owner Nathan Shaw and his wife Stacy of Lakeview, Minnesota,” who have been organizing a smaller-scale counterpart called Drag Weekend since back in 2015.
The latest encounter, with an excerpt featuring the organizers themselves at Byron Dragway, Illinois showcased in the latest video (as of March 28th, 2022) embedded below, was a 340-mile (547 km) roundtrip to a trio of tracks in just three days over a single weekend. With “less pressure or fanfare” but a similar format – cars need to be driven, not trailered – the racers hit Tri-State Raceway in Earlville, Iowa on Friday, Cordova International Raceway in Cordova, Illinois for a night race, Byron on Sunday, and then head back to Tri-State for the final day of the event.
And it seems that organizers thought about everything, from classes (there are four of them: Outlaw, True Street, Factory Street, and Street Eliminator) to an appearance at their competition with a little rascal of their own. Only that during the latest outing it was not tiny at all, since we are dealing with a grocery-getting 1980 Buick Century Estate Wagon! Also, do not call it “grandpa’s station wagon,” since the owner and operator of One Guy’s Garage is highly skilled in his tradecraft, and the Buick was transformed into a sleeper in a matter of weeks.
At the Byron race against a stripped-out crimson truck, it arrived locked and load-ready with a 5.3-liter LC9 V8 engine that was also sporting a massive Borg Warner S483 turbocharging unit, and even some Regal T-Type wheels, just so Buick connoisseurs would know that something is amiss from the very beginning. The race takes place at the 1:35 mark, and, unfortunately, it is the only one recorded. This is because the Buick got a hole in one of the pistons... And still won thanks to a 10.99s vs. 12.89s pass!
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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