Best _ _ _ _ place for a racer to live

[Doug Domm]

Smokey Yunick told us he had the best _ _ _ _ garage well I'd like to hear opinions on the best place for a racer to live considering distance to tracks, number of local tracks, how often you can race, how you are treated at these tracks, seasonal temps, quality and fair race minded machine shops nearby, anything else that may be important to you that makes you think it's the best place for a racer to live.

[Michael Kilduff]

Probably pretty tough to beat central NC, or anywhere else in NC for that matter.

I live on the coast ( Carolina Beach, NC) and have 5 'local' tracks within about 100 miles, and we have races year round. It does slow down to about 1 per month in dec-Jan-Feb, but they are all good paying bracket races. Of those 5 local tracks 3 are IHRA (Coastal Plains in Jacksonville, Dunn-Benson, Fayetteville).

Go out out another 100 miles and there is Zmax, Piedmont (IHRA), Darlington SC (IHRA with a triple header points race on Labor Day), Outer Banks Dragway, North East Dragway, and another 30 miles will find Richmond VA (NHRA), Roxboro, Farmington, and a couple other dragstrips.

If someone was living in the Raleigh area they would probably have more tracks within 100 miles than anyplace else.

There are also a couple of specialty organizations like the CCRA (Carolina Class Racers Assoc.) and the Classic Gearjammers that race all over NC.

EDIT- The tracks here have always been friendly to me, most of the time track prep is very good, lots of race shops and engine shops around, and really good payouts compared to other areas I have read about. A typical program around here will have a $45 entry for footbrake that pays $1000-1500 to win. Michael Beard and others put on big bucks races like the one scheduled next weekend at Coastal Plains-a 5K, then a 20K, then another 5K (all in 2 days) footbrake race.

[MelloYello]

Originally Posted by Doug Domm

Smokey Yunick told us he had the best _ _ _ _ garage well I'd like to hear opinions on the best place for a racer to live considering distance to tracks, number of local tracks, how often you can race, how you are treated at these tracks, seasonal temps, quality and fair race minded machine shops nearby, anything else that may be important to you that makes you think it's the best place for a racer to live.

Getting tired of living in the city the rhymes with fun?

[Dave Ley]

Where I live in South Jersey , I am less than 90 miles from 5 tracks : Atco 12 miles, Englishtown 39 miles, Cecil County 74 miles, Island 79 miles & Maple Grove 88 miles. Add another hour or less and I can be at : Numidia, Capitol, Quarter Aces , Delmar, MIR.
Pretty tough to beat that !

[Keith 944]

hands down, 1/8 mile, North Carolina.
for 1/4 mile, north east, say... PA, DE, NJ

[Ron Ortiz]

Qatar

[Run to Rund]

Las Vegas, NV. The Strip held 3 NHRA Nationals this year. Your stuff won't rust faster than you use up a tank of gas. The winter break from racing lasts from mid-December to late January. You trade a hot July/August for innumerable weekends lost due to rain and snow elsewhere. During the winter, the low temp is often better than the high elsewhere.

[Michael Kilduff]

Michael Beard has a dragstrip locator on his site 'staginglight.com', not sure if he has every track listed but he's got lots of 'em for sure.....you can search state by state if need be-here is a link, you can scroll through all the states-

http://www.staginglight.com/links/trackfinder.html#NC

[Tom Goldman]

Pretty good location here in the Lehigh Valley.
Maple Grove and Island , 1 hour or less.
Numidia ,Cecil County,Englishtown,Atco ,all 2 hours or less.
Skyview ,3 hours, Lebanon Valley 4 hours.
Only long Divisional trips are Dinwiddie ,at 6 hours and Epping ,at 7.[ If your lucky!]

[BRIAN SEATE]

Winston Salem, Raleigh, Greensboro, N.C. The climate is nice, there are tracks everywhere. We run some 1/4 mile, but lots of 1/8. Z-MAX and Bristol are close. Living near Piedmont Dragway would be best in my opinion. We have the V.I.R.road course near Danville, Va., quite a few oval short tracks, etc.We have the Carolina Class Racers here, a great combo group. This area is IHRA Div. 9 country. Check out Farmington Dragway and Mooresville Dragway. We also have stickshift clubs here, go to classic gearjammers.org The Mooresville,NC. area is home to all things motorsports. Fayetteville Motorsports Park still runs 1/4, hope this helps.