2026 NHRA National Event Schedule

[BKSG1198]

Originally Posted by Dan Bennett

That was a big surprise to me as I would have thought the new IHRA would have done everything to lock that place up.

It's been a while since I've been there, but it was the only track I ever worked at where the fast cars had to turn around in the shut down area and drive back towards the starting line to get to the return road. Maybe it's changed, but I don't remember the land making it easy to extend the return road and build a cutoff to it.

Still, a very good venue with incredible air. Also the craziest dew I've ever experienced for night sessions.

As for the open date, considering it's right there with St Louis, wonder if the new track in western Missouri is going to slot in there.

The open date wouldn't work for Flying H as it's only 200 miles from WW Raceway, so you're drawing from the same demographic / area 2 weeks straight, it's what kind of kills E-Town when they added NED, the Candian crowd stopped coming down to Etown and went to NED instead which took away about 20% of the crowd out of the mix. I also heard Flying H still needs to do a lot of work to make it NE ready as the Divisional and Bracket finals were a big mess with logistics and parking. I would think going from Maple Grove to STL your going to see a VMP, Charlotte, No Problem Raceway get that date as it's logistical for the teams traveling

Also have to remember we're in August - the race is in May so MIR has 9 months to get things in order for a National and Royce does a great job and wouldn't put it past him to have plans laid out already on fixing things, they hold one of the largest Import Events in the USA there with World Cup with over 600+ cars so the place has room for the cars but I think you'll see a lower class NE there, like maybe no PSB & Alky, only one of the Top classes and maybe like a quota of like 50-55 for sportsman....just my throughts