Monday, Nov. 1st WE'RE NOW ADDING VIDEOS! Well, sort of. We haven't figured how to add them to the site itself, but that's coming! Meantime, we've had some videos sent to us, and we're starting to upload them to youtube. We have a couple links of videos from Thompson added to the "Pictures" page, and will continue to add them during the next week or so. More pictures are still coming our way, and we will be adding them in the next couple weeks. Thanks to everybody that sent already! THOMPSON FLEA MARKET THIS WEEKEND! This two day event is huge. and we're going to be part of it! We'll be setting up a booth and handing out fliers promoting Holeshot Drags at Thompson in 2011. Everybody is looking forward to racing weekly on tuesday nights! Wednesday, Oct 28th MONADNOCK FOR 2011. We visited Monadnock Speedway in New Hampshire a few weeks ago. What a nice place! They host NASCAR races on their 1/4 mile paved oval on Saturday nights. We are in discussions to run the Holeshot Drag race program with a Car Cruise on Wednesday nights during the 2011 season. We have yet to determine whether we do a weekly program, or every other week. We will keep you posted, but we are excited about adding Monadnock to the HDRA family. BETHEL MOTOR SPEEDWAY. A little known fact is that this track is where "Holeshot Drags" was born! This author operated this NY facility in the 90's, and did some experimenting with this form of drag racing. By the way, Bethel is where the Woodstock Rock Festival was held back in the 60's. We are currently in discussions with them to run a one day special with a Car Show, most likely on a Sunday sometime in the 2011 season. They've done a remarkable job with ongoing improvements to the facility. We are looking forward to going back to Sullivan County where it all started. Tuesday, Oct. 26th WHAT A GREAT SEASON! Our first season is in the books, and it certainly ended on high notes. We had great fields of cars, great racing, and most of all, alot of smiles. Our Holeshot Drag Nationals at the Waterford Speedbowl provided more racing for the competitors than they could ever imagine; 24 events with 23 different winners. Thompson's inaugeral HDRA event introduced Holeshot Drags to a brand new crowd, and the number of time shots they could run during test & tune was far more than they expected. More smiles. We make it no secret that our operation is low keyed. Having a great time while providing a safe environment to race is our goal. We feel that we have succeeded. We will have a more in depth wrap-up of the season later. SUNDAY SPECIALS. In addition to running weekly shows at Waterford and Thompson, we will be introducing Holeshot Drags to various facilities around the northeast. We are putting our schedule together for 2011, and we expect to have a tentative one posted by the end of November. The racing season ended just two days ago, and we already have 4 Sundays reserved! HDRA is growing! THANKS FOR THE PICTURES As most of you know, we were stuck last minute with no track photographer for our first Thompson event. Several of you responded by sending pics you took during that day. Thank you! We posted them immediately, and we now have a nice little collection. Some were from camera phones, some from regular cameras. It was great to receive them all. If you took pictures on Sunday and haven't seen them yet, please do! We would love to see them! 60 FOOT TIMES. As mentioned earlier, we keep things low keyed and simple. But as we expand our operation, we see where and what we need to improve how we operate. Next season will see a continuing upgrade to our timing system. We started the season with the bare essentials; no prestage lights, and hand written time slips. What a nightmare! Leo Butten and his sons, plus Lisa Wagner and DJ Card were put through the ringer writing thousands of time slips. We fixed all that by July, and continue to add new features in 2011. We are looking to add 60 foot times, plus MPH. Our software upgrade will allow a much faster complilation of weekly points, something that we were way behind the 8-ball on this year. While we got to the point where the running of the operation went smoothly and quickly, it'll make it less stressful and even quicker for our great staff to operate the events. These upgrades are key to smoother operations as HDRA expands. Sunday Update, Oct. 24th THOMPSON EVENT A SUCCESS! Thanks to everyone that braved the cold weather and ugly skies. Our first event at Thompson Speedway went off without a hitch. All the competitors got a boatload of time shots during test & tune, and we ended up with a whole bunch of smiles. Everybody had a great time. We had a great field of fast cars! Our thanks goes to many people. First, thank you to the staff and management of Thompson for allowing us to expand our venture to their great facility. They are a class act. Thanks to all the racers and fans that came out to support us today. But most of all, special thanks goes to the HDRA staff that made it possible to run things so well every week. It couldn't have been done without them. Future of Thompson? The plans at the moment are to run weekly events on Tuesday nights starting in the 2011 season. We will keep you posted as more news develops. PICTURES? Our photographer had a last minute change and could not make it to our event. For all those that took pictures, we would GREATLY appreciate you uploading whatever you can for us. We will post them on our site as soon as possible. VIDEOS. We would also appreciate any dvd's of videos taken, not just of Thompson, but also of races during the season at Waterford. We plan on putting together a compilation dvd or two this coming fall. A combination of videos from different people should make for an interesting mix. WE'LL BE AT THE FLEA MARKET IN 2 WEEKS at Thompson. We will be setting up a booth during the two day event November 6th & 7th. Our staff will be on hand to answer any questions at that time. Look for us! More news in the next day or two. Thanks again to all! Sunday morning 6am, Oct. 24th TODAY IS THE DAY! The track is set up and ready to go. This should be a great day for racing at Thompson! Here's a heads-up on how we will do pit parking and staging of cars: PITTING: All cars will be pitting on the back stretch. Cars trailered in will pull to the left on to the grass with the tail end of the trailer on the edge of the pavement. Race cars will be on hte paved surface. Cars driven in will be parked on the backstretch against the wall. This will leave a road down the middle to get to the staging area. STAGING: There will be 4 lanes in staging. Starting from right to left will be Bike Eliminator, then Street, then Comp. IMPORTANT! The lane on the very left is to remain open, as this will be the return road to the pits after receiving time slips. This is being posted at 6:00am, and racing is a go. We do not at this time anticipate weather problems. l Friday, Oct. 22nd WEATHER IS LOOKING GOOD! Every week we keep a close eye on the weather. This week is no different. Earlier there were concerns about possible showers for Sunday, but now all the weather services are downgrading that forecast or eliminating the showers altogether. We have no reason at this point to believe that weather will be an issue come Sunday. FUEL. Some of the phone calls we've received were in regards to fuel. At this point we believe nobody will be on hand to sell it, so if you require it you should make alternate plans. Meanwhile, we are looking for a possible last minute source. JUNIORS. Regarding kids: Thompson's insurance policy at the moment is not set up to allow anyone under 16 to race. We believe that will addressed by the begining of next season, but for now juniors will have to set this one out. KEEP SPREADING THE WORD! We are very impressed with the interest shown for this Thompson event. From what we see, we expect a good showing of competitors. A good show this Sunday should lead to a weekly show next season (most likely Tuesday nights). Call and email your friends! We look forward to seeing all of you this weekend! Thursday, Oct. 21st JUST A FEW MORE DAYS! It's great to see the enthusiasm for this upcoming Thompson event. We expect alot of new faces to our format, and they are in for a treat. One of the differences they will see, as mentioned the other day, is the fact that each competitor will get several more test & tune runs in than what they are used to. In speaking with one of our Nationals competitors yesterday, he got 13 time shots before they ended. Plus he went several rounds in the two events he was eligible in. Weather: Obviously we are hoping for great weather for Sunday. If the weatherman doesn't cooperate with us, we will have a raindate the following weekend. If we need to have a raindate, we may choose Saturday (Oct. 30th) to run, or Sunday (Oct. 31th) if we lose Saturday. We will make a final decision if in fact we can't get this weekend in. For right now though, this Sunday is ON! Thursday Oct. 21st Update. We have downloaded some pictures from our "Nationals" on the "Pictures" page on this site. Normally we have not posted many pictures, but instead have linked to "Racedog Photography", the official photographer of the Waterford Speedbowl. They should have these, as well as many others posted soon, if not already from this weekend. They also should have pics posted from previous weeks. If you have a car and your pictures are posted, please support Racedog by purchasing from them, as they have provided us with pics all season for our weekly newsletter. By their help, they are yet another reason why we get to race each week! Tuesday, Oct. 19th THOMPSON THIS SUNDAY! Our first event for Thompson is just days away. We are getting an amazing number of hits on this site because of it. No doubt the Nationals this past weekend at Waterford is also a major driver. We are really looking forward to this new venue. We will be running the same format that we ran at Waterford; COMP, STREET, and BIKE. For those new to us, this is a quick summary of the classes: - STREET: Any street legal car equipped with normal everyday day tires. DOT drag radials or slicks are NOT permitted! Tires must have a wear factor of 200 or higher. - COMP: Anything from modified street cars to all out racers. All tires are legal, including Drag radials and slicks. Cars can be purpose built racers. - BIKE: All motorcycles, quads, ATV's, etc. fall into this catagory. They do not have to be street legal. All races, unless otherwise specified, will be dial-in bracket racing. GET MORE ROUNDS OF PRACTICE IN TEST AND TUNE than you can imagine! Our test & tune is schedule from 12 noon until 2:30pm. We got in 10 rounds of practice this past Sunday. Some competitors had to go into the pits early to save fuel! This is one of the advantages of "Holeshot" Drags! Eavrything moves along much quicker. TELL EVERYBODY YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS WEEKEND! Let's make this inaugaral Thompson event a big one! More to come in the next day or so! Any questions? Go to the "Contact" page on this site and shoot us an email. Sunday, Oct. 17th HOLESHOT DRAG NATIONALS IN THE BOOKS! The First Ever Holeshot Drag Nationals has finally come and gone! Whatta weekend! Everybody, and we mean everybody got more racing than they could possible imagine. Along with our regulars, we saw alot of new faces these past two days. No doubt we will many of them next season as regular competitors. We had 24 different events over the weekend, and almost no repeat winners. Like we said; alot of racing! Thanks goes to all that made the first full season for Holeshot Drags at the Speedbowl a success. We would like to thank Terry Eames and his staff that saw the same vision we did, and made it possible for us to get this off the ground. the Speedbowl made a great home for the 100 foot venture. Thank you to all the people that helped run this on a weekly basis. without them, this would not have been possible. They are as follows: - Kurt "Speedbowl Kurt" Vibber: Announcer and behind the scenes guy. - Brandy Donahue: Timing and adminstrative. - Chris Allen: Starter and lineman. Mike Grillo: Tech - Leo Butten, Lisa Wagner, DJ Card: Time slips, backstretch control. - Dylan and Brannon Butten: Line up control. - Josh Paradise: Burnout Box. Plus, we had many people fill in whenever we were cut short. Thank you! Between the weekly shows, and this special weekend, we were proud to be affliated with so many sponsors that helped support us throughout the year. They are listed on our sponsor page. We would like to specially thank the following: - Norwich Discount Oil for sponsoring the Nationals - Swift Performance, for being the right lane sponsor - B & B Performance, for being the left lane sponsor. We will have more in the next few days regarding this past weekend. We will also have the final tally of the points posted on this site. ON TO THOMPSON SPEEDWAY! The racing season for us is over for the 'Bowl, but it's not over for 2010! Our first event at Thompson Speedway (CT) will be happening this coming Sunday, October 24th. The buzz around the town up there is the drags coming there for the first time. We will be running our three Eliminators (Comp, Street, Bike) as we did at the Speedbowl. More news in the next day or so on the way! Saturday, Oct. 16th GREAT RACING TODAY! MORE IN STORE TOMORROW! We had a great day of racing on our first of two days of the "Nationals". Everybody got a more racing under their belt than one could imagine. Lots of smiles all over the place! We have Norwich Discount Oil to thank as a major sponsor for the Nats. They have been a great supporter for us all season, and they did even more for us by giving all competitors NDO Hoodies along with their trophies. Thanks you Fred and Jeff. One of the many highlights was the "Battle of the Camaros" between Frank Grillo and Harry Austin. Multiple burnouts between the cars were great to see, and they really started to get dialed in as the afternoon went on. Special thanks to both of them for coming out. EVEN MORE GREAT RACING SUNDAY! We have even more in store for everyone with Sunday's program. All competitors will be racing in the heads-up Index races. The we go to an old fashioned "Nostalgia" race for cars '72 and older. It'll be heads up, and the tree will be put away and competitors will be flagged off (just like the 50's and early 60's). The day will be finished with the "Nationals" Eliminators for our 3 regular classes; Comp, Street, and Bike. Friday, Oct. 15th SUNDAY & SUNDAY. The Nationals are here! We are really looking forward to this weekend, and seeing all the racing that's going to happen. Thankfully the weather looks like it will cooperate with us for both days. Saturday's schedule will see Test & Tune at noon, followed by all the Shootouts, and finished with the 3 Eliminators (Comp, Street, Bike). These events are scheduled to start a 3pm. Inbetween the Shootouts we will be running 3 match races between the Camaros of Frank Grillo and Harry Austin. This was a last minute addition to our program, and should prove to be a crowd pleaser. Sunday's schedule will start with Test & Tune at noon, followed by all the Index races. again scheduled to start at 3pm. After the Index races will be our Nostalgia race for cars '72 and earlier. The tree is going to be put away and the race will be flagged off by Speedbowl's Rich Keeter. There will be three classes (A, B, and C), all determined by times (go to "Nationals" page on this site to see class breakdown). This will be heads-up, and there will be no time slips for this race. This event is just a strictly "for-fun" race. The last races will be the 3 "Nationals Eliminators" for Comp, Street, and Bike. These have been the support classes for our weekly shows. There will be trophies for all races, but in this event, trophies will go to the top 4 in each Eliminator. The final event for the "Nats" will be our Burnout contest. This is open to anybody. It has a 15 second time limit; long enough to put on a great show, but short enough not destroy equipment. SOME SIMPLE RULES TO FOLLOW! Please use common sense. 1. NO ALCOHOL in the pits. Save the beers for after the races. 2. Absolutely NO BURNOUTS on the track EXCEPT in the designated burnout boxes. 3. Speed limit in the pits AND on the track is 10 mph. This includes the return road behind the billboards, and the backstretch. The ONLY racing allowed is in the 100 foot we use for racing. 4. For Bikes and Quads... wheelies coming off the line are inevitible. We have NO problem with that. What we have a problem with are the guys that purposely carry the wheels all the way down to "show off". For safety, showboating will not be tolerated. We are racers ourselves. We can tell the difference between hard racing and showing off. 5. For burnout competitors, the burnouts are to be done ONLY on the concrete burnout pad located on the infield. There is to be NO burnouts, donuts, or any reckless driving on the track. Our people are right there, and we will not tolerate anyone putting them in danger. THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE! HAVE FUN! This is our total philosophy. We are here to have a great time, and to provide a great time for everybody. This is what it's all about! ENJOY! Update: 9:00pm Norwich Discount Oil, our major sponsor for the 2010 Holeshot Drag Nationals, will be awarding NDO hoodies to all the winners this weekend. Are they hooking us up, or what? Thanks Jeff and Fred! If you live in the area, you should definately consider doing business with them. They are a full service oil company, and their prices are the most competitve around. Thursday, Oct. 14th RACE FUEL. People have been asking if race gas will be available this weekend. Good guy Mike from New England Fuels has told us he will be on hand both days to take care of competitors needing race gas. Our understanding is that he will be there both days in the morning only, as he has obligations elsewhere later those two days. We believe he will be heading out by 12 noon both days. Racing fuels available are those allowed at the track for the circle track guys; 110, and 112. BATTLE OF THE CAMAROS. A late addition to our show will be a Match Race between the two high horsepower Camaros of Frank Grillo and Harry Austin. This was just put together last minute, and should be a real crowd pleaser. These cars are 8 second cars on the quarter, putting out serious power. This could be a new format for special shows next season. LIST OF NEW CARS KEEPS GROWING. Every day we keep getting phone calls of people that will be racing with us for the first time this season at our big event. Some have been spectators during the season, some will be seeing it for the first time. The bottom line is we are excited to see what will be coming through the gates this weekend. CAR CRUISE. Jack McLean and Sandy Shrader will be organizing our final Car Cruise on Saturday. They jumped in to help out during the last portion of the season, and our Car Cruise car count went up. With a full winter ahead to get this thing organized, they will make this Cruise will be bigger and better. There will be 6 trophies for this Cruise. Wednesday, Oct. 13th WEATHER LOOKS GOOD FOR THE WEEKEND. As always, we keep an eye on the weather. A few days ago there was some question about Saturday, but now that we are closer to the weekend, the weather is looking good both days. Pits will be opening at 10 am both days, test & tune at 12 noon, eliminations at 3pm, all as scheduled. Please note: race engines cannot be fired up before noon on Sunday! It's a town ordinance. RACERS ARE COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK FOR THIS ONE! We're hearing from people that are bringing extra cars and people for this upcoming weekend special. We'll be seeing alot of new faces. No doubt this will lead to new weekly regulars for next season. You'll see many people building cars next year for the 100 foot drags, especially since we now have Thompson coming on board as a second track (First race in a week and a half on Oct. 24th, with their eye on doing this weekly for the 2011 season). LOTS OF RACING THIS WEEKEND! Between the Shootouts, Index races, Nostalgia race, plus the eliminators both days for our Comp, Street, and Bike Eliminators, all racers will be making a ton of passes this weekend. This is one of the advantages to 100 foot drags... there is no other form of drag racing in which the competitor can get so much racing in in a day or weekend (yes, we're shamelessly bragging). BURNOUT CONTEST FINAL EVENT SUNDAY We will finish the weekend festivities with our second burnout contest of the season. Like the last one we had during the July 4th weekend, we will limit it to 15 seconds each. While that may not seem long, it's longer than you may think (count it out). It is long enough to put on a great show, but short enough to keep from damaging drivetrain and destroying tires. The fans loved it! Sunday, Oct. 10th HOLESHOT DRAG NATIONALS THIS COMING WEEKEND! We're counting down the days for our big event. With less than a week to go, the final preparations are in the works. We plan to have a sheet of procedures, classes, schedule, and explanations of how we will be running the show for the weekend. This will be especially important, as we expect to see alot of new faces for the finale of the season for drags at the Speedbowl. EXPOSURE TO NEW FANS TODAY! The speedbowl had their season finale for Stock Cars today, concluding with 300 laps of racing. Whatta show! Before the racing began, there was a "pit party" on the infield for 2 hours. All the race cars and drivers were on the track, and fans came down to see the cars up close. We had 4 cars on display that race with us on Friday nights, and made many new people aware of our drag race venture. We'd like to thank the following people. First, Butch Kolashuk for bringing out his '57 T-Bird (a former Connecticut Dragway car). Next, Butch's son Dale with his beautiful '67 Mustang. Paul Holmes brought his '72 Nova out to display, and had alot of heads turning with his tunnel ram and NOS power adder. Last, we had Warren Wright bring out his first generation Chevy II, complete with a big inch small block. Special thanks to all of them for helping us expose Holeshot Drags to new fans and racers. THOMPSON THE WEEK AFTER! The same weekend we have our Nationals, Thompson is having their season finale, with their World Series of Racing. It's going to be a huge 3 day show. Is that the buzz that's going around town? Is that what the whole town is talking about? Nope. It's the first Holeshot Drag event at Thompson on October 24th. The whole town is talking about it. We expect a great turnout there, as most of our regulars will be there, as well as people closer to that area. Being an hour closer to Epping, we will be drawing from a larger pool of racers. Our goal is be doing this on a weekly basis next season there, as well as our home track, the Speedbowl. It's getting exciting! Friday, Oct. 8th NATIONALS ONE WEEK AWAY! It's getting very exciting these days. We're one week away from our first really big event, and the response is great. With our regulars, we will also be seeing many new cars. Because we are now having an event at Thompson (the week after) we are now reaching people that are just finding out about us. LOTS OF RACING FOR EVERYBODY! Depending on what you are running, many competitors will have at least 2 Eliminators to run each day, if not more. We have 9 Shootouts on Saturday, plus Eliminations for our 3 Eliminators. We have Nostalgia Drags, Index Racing, and eliminations again for our 3 Eliminators. There's something for everybody! Racers can race in as many events as they qualify for. Having extra racing available to the competitor is one of the advantages of Holeshot Drags over other drag venues. Our goal is simple; we want everybody to have as much fun as possible. BRING YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS! The more the merrier applies here. Help us make this event even greater by getting the people you know to come out and support you. Despite the fact that this is a big event, the admission for spectators is still FREE! Of course, we hope they buy a burger and some fries at the refreshment stand while visiting with us. Let's fill those stands, and make this 2 day event even more special! DRAG CARS ON DISPLAY THIS WEEKEND AT THE 'BOWL! The Speedbowl has a big 3 day finale this weekend for their stock cars, with 10 divisions racing. On Sunday, they will be having a big "Pit Party", in which all the Stock Cars and drivers will be out on the track. From 9:30 to 11:30 in the morning, all the fans will be allowed on the track to see the cars up close, as well as meet the drivers. We will have a few of our regulars from the Drags out on the track as well to promote next weekend. This will be the first time for many to see our type of race cars. We feel once seen, some people will decide right then and there to make plans for the Nationals! SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE NATS! It's only a week and a half away from our first ever Nationals, and we have alot of racing for everybody during the two day event. On Saturday we have 9 Shootouts for Cars and Bikes, including a Shootout for kids 12 and under! Virtually every car, bike, quad, etc. is eligible for at least one Shootout. Check out the "Nationals" page on this site to see which Shootout(s) you will be eligible for. NOTE: All Shootouts are bracket racing... all competitors will dial in their times. On Sunday we have several heads-up races on Sunday. First, we have a Nostalgia race in which we put the tree away and flag the cars off like they did in the 50's and early 60's. There will be 3 classes (A/Comp, B/Comp, and C/Comp) to make the racing more fair. We will then have Heads-up Index races, with 4 indexes for the cars and 4 for bikes. On each of the two days, the last races will be the eliminations for our regular Eliminators; Comp, Street, and Bike. Both days will be extra point events for our competitors. These will be our biggest events of the 2 days, especially on Sunday We would appreciate you spending a little time getting the word out for this 2 day race. Call a few friends, send a few emails, tell the people you work with. The admission for both days is still FREE for spectators! Bring out as many friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, etc. to come out and support you and support the drags! Tuesday, Oct. 5th FLIER FOR "NATS". Many of our racers and fans are looking forward to our first ever 2 day Nationals event. For those of you that would like to help spread the word, we have a black and white flier on the bottom of our "Nationals" page on this site. You can just copy and paste it, or save it and print it out in whatever format that works for you. Copies can be made from that if you wish to get some fliers out to your local parts stores, shops, etc. We appreciate all the help and effort you may put in this. Monday, Oct. 4th CHECK OUT OUT SATURDAY SHOOTOUTS! We have a bunch of Shootouts on the Saturday of the Nationals. We just added a couple new ones for Quads, as well as a Junior Shootout. Check the "Nationals" page... there's something for almost everyone! Sunday, Oct. 3rd RAIN CANCELS FINAL FRIDAY! This is really not how we wanted to end our regular Friday night season, but Mother Nature had different plans. There was just no way we could have run this event. Because of the Speedbowl's schedule, we cannot make up the event. However there is good news... LESS THAN 2 WEEKS UNTIL THE "NATS"! And the good news is that we still have alot of racing left. The first ever "Holeshot Drag Nationals" is coming up October 16th & 17th, and there will be multiple eliminators for everybody both days. Check out the "Nationals" page on this site to check out all the Shootouts, Index races, and Eliminations we have for both days. Some cars or trucks could be eligible for up to 3 different events in a day! The plans are being finalized now, but the plan is to keep the admission for spectators the same... FREE! Even though there is going to be more racing and awards, we are also looking to keep the entry fee at $20 per day. We expect to see all our regulars, most of our part timers, plus alot of new faces for this two day event. We are also getting calls from people with campers, as many people plan on staying right there for the weekend. It's going to be a great weekend. Don't forget that this Saturday and Sunday event will start at 12 noon for test & tune both days. Planned time to start Eliminations will be at 3:00pm. THOMPSON IS THE WEEK AFTER! Our first event ot Thompson Speedway will be on Sunday October 24th. Keep in mind that Thompson has a big 3 day show the week before, and if they have to make up one of those days, it may be on our day. If that is the case, we will push our date to the following Sunday, October 31st. We'll get you out of there before dark so you can go trick or treating! MONADNOCK FOR 2011. We went to Monadnock (NH) today to scope out the facility for an event during the 2011 season. We plan on many "One Day" Specials at different facilities, and Monadnock looks to be one of them. They have a great track, and we are looking forward to working with their great staff. We'll post more on this as it develops. Thursday, Sept. 30th WE ARE KEEPING AN EYE ON THE WEATHER. We are keeping an ey on the weather situation. West of us is a huge and dangerous storm, but so far it's going straight north. While we have to be prepared for the worse, we can see a scenario where this thing could actually miss us if it doesn't turn east as predicted. Friday morning we will look at what is going on and take it from there. We would like to do everything we can to get the final Friday night show of the season in. Of course, if we lose it, there's always the "Nats" in two weeks, and Thompson in three! Wednesday, Sept. 29th INTEREST IN THOMPSON GROWING QUICKLY! With the official announcement of Thompson being made only a few days ago, we are already getting a spike on visits to the website, and emails making inquiries for the October 24th event. Being closer to Epping will put this event closer to a larger source of race cars and we are seeing that in our responses.  
The pic of the rail is from Alicia Moran, and the Opel on the right is from Rick Miller. For those with high horsepower cars, we want you to keep something in mind; we do not spray the track. We have our reasons which we won't go into right now, but it has turned out overall to be a smart decision for us, and less breakeage for the racers. Racers with high horsepower cars have simply learned to use some finesse when launching. FRIDAY IS OUR LAST REGULAR SHOW. We've been lucky with the weather so far, losing only two shows this past summer. Let's hope the weatherman cooperates with us for just one more Friday! We'll be running extra races for everybody. After test & tune, we will be running our normal Eliminations for our 3 Eliminators. We will then be finishing with Index races. Indexes for all cars & bukes are listed below on Monday's posting. LARGE FIELD OF CARS FOR NATIONALS EXPECTED! Indications are that we will be seeing the biggest field of cars we've ever seen. Between our regular weekly supporters, our occasional racers, plus first time visiters, we should have a full pit come Saturday & Sunday October 16th and 17th. Remember, these are both day shows, with test & tune starting at 12 noon. This will be a great event to be part of! HDRA CONTINUES IT'S MARCH ON TO NEW TRACKS! Without going into details, we are looking at a race facility in New Hampshire this Sunday to plan a 2011 visit. The owner expressed an interest in looking at bringing our form of drag racing to their very nice facility. Whether it will be a one time show, or a weekly event remains to be seen. We'll keep you posted. Tuesday, Sept. 28th CLASSES FOR NOSTALGIA DRAGS AT "NATS". This event, like all our others, is to be a "just-for-fun" race. Since it will be heads up, we feel we need to split up some of the cars so tha racing will be fair. We have decided to have 3 classes: A/Comp, B/Comp, and C/Comp. They will be determined by times run. A will be for cars running 2.49 and faster, B will be for cars that run 2.50 to 2.99, and C will be for cars that run 3.00 and slower. This is listed on "Nationals" page on this site, along with "Index" racing info, as well as schedule. Monday, Sept. 27th FINAL FUNTIME FRIDAY this week! Can you believe it. The end of the regular season comes to an end this Friday (don't forget the "Nats" two weeks later). There's going to be alot of racing Friday. Along with the regular show, we are also going to have "Index" racing for all divisions. This will be heads-up racing for everybody, divided into classes or "Indexes" determined by times. This will keep compition fair for everybody. Indexes for the cars will be 2.00, 2.50, 3.00, and 3.50. Bike Eliminator will be divided by indexes 2.50, 3.00, 3.50, and 4.00. The competitor chooses which index to run. The index is like a dial in; go faster and you break out and lose the race (unless of course, your competitor breaks out by a larger margin). Of course, add to the mix a Pro tree. Instead of the ambers coming on one at a time, all the amber lights will come on at the same time for 0.500 seconds, and then the green will come on. It'll make for interesting racing. HOLESHOT DRAG NATIONALS TWO WEEKS LATER! We finish the season at the Waterford Speedbowl October 16th & 17th. This is a Saturday and Sunday afternoon show. For both days, pits will open around 10am, while test & tune will start at noon. Go to the "Nationals" page on this site for the schedule of events. There will be alot of extra racing for everybody on both days. We will have Shootouts for Fords, Mopars, Chevys, Diesels, Harleys, and more. Index racing! The tree will be put away for the Nostalgia race, and instead will be flagged off like they did it in the 50's and 60's! All of this plus our regular classes, Comp, Street, and Bike Eliminators on both days. Saturday will be double points and Sunday will be triple! While there are trophies for all winners, the big ones will be on Sunday! Comp, Street, and Bike on Sunday will see trophies go to the top four in each Eliminator. A couple of changes have been made to our schedule. First, we didn't put in that we are doin a Burnout Contest on Sunday. This will be like the July show we had which was great! It will be for 15 seconds only, which is actually alot longer than it sounds. It's more than enough time to make alot of smoke and thrill the fans, but not so long that tires are being destroyed or drivetrain parts aren't being hurt. Another reason for the time limit is that we have found that burnout contests that go right the end where the tires (or drivetrain) blow actually become really boring. Our burnout contests are fun and entertaining. Second, we found ourselves in a pickle for our Cruise. Originally scheduled fro Sunday, we are now compelled to move it to Saturday. This is so as not to compete with another show that day. So the Cruise will be Saturday for us, and our Sponsors Midway will move in that spot for Sunday. People with Cruise Cars still wanting to come Sunday are more than welcome. THOMPSON SPEEDWAY OCTOBER 24TH! It's official! We'll be going to Thompson for a Sunday afternoon show the week after our Nats. We can't begin to tell you how excited we are to bring the HDRA up there. With your support, this will be a great show, and will most likely lead to weekly mid-week events for 2011. We are putting the schedule together right now, but so far this is what it looks like: Test & Tune will be at 12 noon, with the gates opening at approximately 10am. The plan is to have the show over by 5pm or so. While we plan on running the 3 Eliminators that we ran at Waterford ("Comp", "Street", and "Bike"), we may add a Shootout and/or some index racing as well. We'll post any additions or changes here if and when they come up. Rain-out date! Please note that the 24th is a rain-out date for Thompson's World Series the week before. If they need to use the 24th to make up for a rainout, we will move our show to the following week on the 31st. Chances are that if they rainout, then we will probably be rained out also on our "Nats" weekend, and will need the 24th to make up at Waterford. Let's just keep our fingers crossed for good weather... we've been very lucky at the 'Bowl this year with only 2 rainouts. SPREAD THE WORD! The season is coming to an end, but there's plenty of great racing left! Bring your friends and make these last events memorable ones! Tuesday, Sept. 21st Nats schedule posted. We have a tentative schedule for the "Nats" posted on the "Nationals" page of this site. While we may make some additions and changes between now and then, this will be the basic format. On Saturday there will be various Shootouts for Mustangs, Mopars, and Diesels. We also have a "Rat Rod / Kool Kar Shootout. We also have the regualr Shootouts for our regular Eliminators that day. Sunday will see a large Car Cruise (complete with multiple trophies), a Sponsors Midway, plus Nostalgia Drags. This is for cars '72 and earlier. We will put the tree away and have them started by the colorful flagman Rich Keeter. We will finish the weekend with the "Nationals Eliminators" for our three divisions. The plan is to have huge trophies for the winners of the "Nats", plus trophies for the runners up and those that made it to the semi's. Monday, Sept. 20th All-Ford Shootout this Friday! Special thanks goes to Whaling City Ford for being this week's sponsor. This Shootout, like all others we've had, will be run after the regular program. All Fords are eligible for this event, and get to run in the regular portion of the show first in their repective classes. Less-than-nimble-fingers. We passed out fliers at the car show at Dodd Stadium yesterday and got a nice response, especially now that it looks as though we are adding an event at Thompson before the season ends. The problem? We put the wrong date on them for the "Nats". The Saturday & Sunday afternoon show is the 16th & 17th, not the 15th & 16th! I blame my lousy typing on my irresponsible fingers, and I'm sticking to that story. Index racing was fun. We added an extra race for everybody that we call index racing. Basically it was heads up racing, and it was broken up into 4 classes (indexes) based on times. In other words, we weren't going to put a 3-1/2 second street car up against a 2 second racer heads up. We have plans to do this again for Final Funtime Friday. Perhaps we will do a Pro-tree instead of a standard one. The index race we did last Friday was a last minute decision. We didn't event know if we had time to do it but we wanted to give it a try. Because we have to do our best to get the show in by 9:30 (at 9:31 we get hit with hundreds of dollars of extra expenses) plus the fact we didn't know how we would do it with the bikes, we left them out for this trial run. We have plans to do something for them this week if time allows. Input is always welcome. Quads are always welcome. For some reason a rumor started going around that they were not welcome. We're not sure who started it or why, but the fact is that nothing has changed; quads are an important part of the show, and have done alot to build the Bike Eliminator's numbers up, and bring new racers to our venue. If there is any doubt to what you hear, make absolutely sure you are hearing it from a real HDRA official. You can also shoot us an email to us from this site on the contact page. Just 4 more weeks until the Nats! Spread the word... it's going to be alot of fun! Friday, September 17th Double Points "End of Summer Championship" tonight. Special thanks goes to Oakdell Motel for being tonight's sponsor. They are located just past I-395 on Rt. 85 near the track. A nice place to consider staying if you are staying overnight for the "Nats". Tonight's show is a double points show. Tonight we are going to best to get our racing in early ... before 9pm, so as to allow time to try something new. If time allows, we are going to bring all cars back out for "Index Racing". There will be four indexes: 2.49 and faster, 2.50 to 2.99, 3.00 to 3.49, and 3.50 and slower. Each racer is allowed to run one index for the night, so choose the one that fits the times your car is running. There will be no dial-in... everybody runs "heads up" against others in the index. You cannot run faster than the index, or else you will break out. We will run each index completely without stopping until there are two cars. There will be no "bye: runs. We will run the slowest index first, then progress to the faster indexes. It will be a fun event that we are going to try, and it will give a new twist to the racing as well as another chance for everybody to run. Thompson Speedway October 24th. We are still working out the details, but it looks like we have a green light for our first event at Thompson Speedway. It will be a Sunday afternoon program that will most likely lead to weekly racing next year (on a different night than the "Bowl, of course). The rain date is set for October 31st if needed. We will keep you posted! Monday, September 13th Winners from 9/10 - Paul Holmes gets added to the list of repeat winners, as he caught runner-up Dave Gagnon in Comp Eliminator. Derek Rockwell took Street Eliminator, and Jon Tisdale repeats in Bike Eliminator. The Pony Car Shootout was won by Dale Kolashuk in his beautiful stick shift Mustang. Schedule change for the Nats. We're putting the final touches to the mid-October Nats. Considering past history with weather that time of year, the expenses of running the show, plus racer's expenses, we've decided to eliminate Friday night, and make the Nats a two day event. The event will be held Saturday & Sunday afternoons, with racing scheduled to start at 12 noon, with the pits opening at 10am. Final schedule will be posted this week, but for now, this is what we have planned. Both days will start with test & tune sessions. Saturday will have various Shootouts (Mustang, Mopar, Diesel, Harley, etc.) plus double point eliminations for our 3 Eliminators. We may also bring back "Index" racing (described below). Sunday will be triple point Eliminations for our three Eliminators, a "Super Cruise", a Nostalgia race (complete with a flagman instead of a tree). We are also looking to bring in special attractions, such as a top fueler or two for a Cacklefest. "Index" racing. This is the format we used in 2007 & 2008. We divided the fastest cars from the slowest by 4 "Indexes"; 2.00, 2.50, 3.00, & 3.50. This was heads up racing with no dial-in, and you were not allowed to run faster than the index you were racing in. In 2008 we allowed a dial-in in 2008, and it made alot of racers happy. But since we already have dial-in racing for our regular Eliminators, we will look at keeping the heads-up theme. We are looking at running this format, or a variation of it for the Nats weekend. What surprised us how many racers ran multiple indexes. Faster cars were hitting the brakes hard in the slower indexes, and the slower cars were running in faster indexes hoping the fast cars would red light. The bottom line was racers were getting as much racing under their belt and having fun. More later this week! Tuesday, September 7th Last Friday lost to Earl. While the end of the world that was predicted did not come to be, there was no question as to why we lost last Friday. We made the call to pull the plug on Thursday to give people plenty of time to make other plans. Even if we had no rain, the forcast for bad weather was so bad that we would have been looking at half empty pits and very empty grandstands. People were too busy preparing for the storm that never was. Home page change. If you notice, we finally cleaned up the home page. All news will be here where it belongs. The home page was a cluttered mess, as too many things were on it. This author does not know his way around a computer like some of the wiz kids, but we are doing our best to make this site more functional. The bad news. Wall Stadium and Oswego will have to wait until 2011. We lost both events at Wall and Oswego due to rain, and have to wait for next season to try again. Unfortunately we could not reschedule either one this year due to the fact that the season is winding down for both facilities, and there are just too many other big shows and events this time of year to fit us in. While it was disappointing for all of us, management from the tracks and HDRA felt it was best to wait for next year. We feel the first event at each track must be a total success, and rescheduling for 2011 gives us our best chance. The good news. HDRA may be heading to Daytona Thanksgiving Weekend. There is a HUGE show at the big track called the "Turkey Rod Run". The whole infield of the Daytona International Speedway is filled with show cars (4800 last year), a manufacturers midway, a swap meet, etc., etc., etc. The whole infield is filled ( about 60 acres, NOT including the 18 acre Lake Lloyd)! It is estimated that there are 40-50,000 special interest cars in the area for the four day event. We are looking to put on a two day event close by. We have some options, but our best one is probably New Smyrna Speedway, which is about 15 minutes away from Daytona. We would use the pit road which is plenty long enough to stage, race, and shut down. We'll keep you posted. Wednesday, September 1st All eyes on Earl. Everybody is keeping a watch on hurricane Earl as it comes up the coast. Of course, the weather channels are eating this up, and giving us worse case scenarios. Of course, we can't predict weather, but looking at the forcast in more detail, it appears we may be able to get Friday's race in. We noticed that as the week progressed, the chance of rain has been diminishing. If we get any rain, it's forcasted at night after we get the show in. If there are any changes, we'll post it here, but for right now, it's a green light for Friday. Points. While we have kept this low key, everybody racing in the eliminations get points. Everybody gets a point for each round of eliminations they go through (including the first). We should have the points posted here by Thursday, and we'll do our best to post them in the pits Friday. First in points are Cy Virgulto in Comp, Matt Viscione in Street, and Jonathan Tisdale in Bike. This Friday, we are awarding double points. Between this Friday, plus the last four regular races, anything can change, including the top positions. Originally we were not going to award points during our Nats, but we are rethinking this position. We'll make a decision and post it soon. Monday, August 30th Points! We've been behind the 8 ball in posting points, and we apologize for that. We are putting the finishing touches on them and should be able get them posted in a few days. This week's pictures. Our track photographer Keith Cyr takes great shots for us, but wasn't able to be with us this week, so Seth Bendfeldt filled in. Photos from Keith at Racedog Photography can be found at www.racedogphotography.com , and this weeks photos from Seth can be found at www.ctconnecticut.com . Just 5 more weeks left! We race every Friday night until October 1st, but that's just 5 weeks away! Can you believe it?And don't forget, the Holeshot Drag Nationals is just 7 weeks away! Spread the word! Wall Stadium August 29th Event Postponed Monday, August 25th Mother Nature bit us twice! Not only did we lose Oswego this past Sunday due to rain, but we find it necessary to reschedule this Sunday's event at Wall Stadium. Because of Sunday's rain, a large car show in the area that got washed out is using their rain date this week. It would be of no benefit to anybody to go against each other, so we will be finding a new date to reschedule. We expect to have a new date sometime next week. Oswego August 22nd Event Postponed Saturday, August 21st All of the indications indicate that tomorrow's event at Oswego Speedway will be ruined by the forcast of rain. Even if predictions of weather do not materialize, history has shown our field of cars would be drastically reduced. The management of the speedway as well as HDRA would like to have the first event to be as successful as possible, so we will postpone tomorrow's event. We will have a rescheduled date this week. More news later. Wednesday, August 18th Oswego is right around the corner! We're very excited to be going upstate New York for our first event outside of Connecticut. For those of you new to our format, keep in mind that having fun is key! We do our best to keep things simple and low key. We have two classes (called "Eliminators") for cars, and one for motorcycles. Street Eliminator is for regular everyday cars that are driven to the race track. Tires must be street legal with a wear factor of 200 or higher. Comp Eliminator is for everything from modified street to all-out race cars. Cars with drag radials or slicks fall in this catagory. Trailered cars are welcome. In the Motorcycle Eliminator, all motorcycles, as well as quads are welcome. All riders must wear helmets, full jacket and pants, and should also have ankle high boots. During eliminations, all races are run bracket style dial-in. This allows all cars to have an equal chance to win. The first test & tune session is scheduled to start at 6pm. Opening time of the pits tbd. Saturday, August 14th How do we top last week? Have more cars and spectators the following! We broke another record last night by having almost 100 entries! Special thanks to everybody that helped run a smooth show. We did some upgrades on our timing system which helped speed things along, but we're not finished. We'll continue in the next few weeks with more new equipment. Thanks goes to Marc Allard, sports editor from the Norwich Bulletin. He wrote a nice article in today's paper. The link to that page online is: Next week: CORVETTE SHOOTOUT, along with our regular show. This all happens August 20th. Corvette owners can race their 'Vette in the regular portion of the show, and then race again in the shootout for a second chance for a trophy. Oswego Speedway Sunday August 22nd. Oswego Speedway (NY) is pulling out all the stops to promote our arrival for this one day event. We're looking forward to visiting the great lakes area facility. They run a first class operation. Wall Stadium the following Sunday August 29th. This Jersey Shore facility has alot of history, and is one of our favorites. We expect alot of racers, as drag racing is really big down there. It helps that they have 3 tracks in the Garden State, one of them being the very famous Englishtown (Just a half hour away). Saturday, August 7th Last night was a great night! Our biggest field of cars ever, and Ernie Bogue's Jet Dragster was a huge hit. Our Nostagia night produced some new cars on the track, but also up on top at our Cruise. It was a great night overall. How cool was it to see 2 Willys Gassers in the final round! Need pictures from last night? Go to www.racedogphotography.com . Keith Cyr takes some great pics for us, and they're available to you by ordering through the website. He took alot of pics both on the track, but also up at the Cruise. Special thanks to all that made last night possible. More to this story coming! Spread the word! August 3rd
New attendees like this '56 Ford will be showing up this Friday to our Cruise when we run the Nostalgia Shootout! This is going to be a great show. We have indications that alot of old time racers (some that raced at Connecticut Dragway) will be on hand. Don't miss it!  Coming August 6th is the rescheduled Nostalgia Shootout. Below is Butch Kolashuk's '57 T-Bird.This was regularly raced at CT Dragway until it closed in '86. Butch went on to E-town and the Valley, but the long drives got old. The car was also heavily damaged in a fire, ending its racing career, and being turned into a street machine. But now that racing is back in the area, Butch was bit by the bug again. This past week saw him replace everything... clutch, tranny, locked rear with the '88's, and finished off with slicks. Lettering is back on the car, as it was back then. The car is back to full race trim. We're looking forward to seeing him make passes. I can see him in a match race with Cy Virgulto's great '40 Willys Gasser. While it can't be seen in this pic, the car has a great period-correct metalflake job that Butch did himself.
Wednesday, July 28th New Junior Division! Part of the growth of our Friday night event has been the inclusion of kids. They've all been having a ball running go-karts, atv's, quads, small motorcycles, etc. We really never had anything formal for the kids...it was one of those deals that just happened. We've been including them in with our Motorcycle Eliminator, and everybody including the bike guys have been very helpful to the kids in the staging area. But to make things more fair for them, we are going to separate them from the adults. The rules are going to be a work in process, so changes down the road are likely. But for now, here are the restrictions: 1. Kids under 16 are eligible. 2. Vehicles raced should be 300 pounds or less. 3. Racers are restricted to times no faster than 4.00 seconds. 4. All racers must wear a helmet, jacket, and full length pants. Any suggestions would be helpful and appreciated. For now this is what we will go with, and make changes as needed. REMEMBER: SAFETY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE! The speed restriction (no faster than 4.00 seconds) should keep kids off of machines thay don't belong on, and keep them safe. What is important for them to learn is good skills on the tree, good dial-in skills, plus sportsmanship. Tuesday, July 27th Don's Speed Shop Nostalgia Night Rescheduled August 6th! We've been lucky with the weather this season, but our luck ran out this past Friday with a full day of rain. We will try again on August 6th. It looks as though we're going to have a great field of Nostalgia cars coming. Subaru Shootout this Friday! We have always been impressed with how fast with the Subarus go in our format. We're looking forward to seeing a good field of these rockets when their event is run on July 30th. Tuesday, July 20th Don's Speed Shop Friday's sponsor. Special thanks to Don's Speed shop in Newington. They're were one of the sponsors that came on board with us in the begining of this venture. If you've never been to their shop, you need to give them a visit. Stepping into their place is like stepping back in time. Don was a drag racer (and record holder) many years back during the sports beginings. While they are a complete full service speed shop, this is the place to go if you are looking for old-school stuff. They have all sorts of parts, old & new hanging from all over. It's like a little museum... a fun place to go. Next time you need something for your street car or racer, stop up and see Paul or Don. Mopar Shootout Night was Great! "Plum Crazy Gil" in his Dodge A100 bested the field with his nostalgic truck. While we haven't seen any wheelies from him yet, he ran quick and consistant enough to best the other Mopars. This is Gil's second visit to the 'Bowl, and we're hoping to see him more often.
Street Eliminator goes to Grestini. Repeat winner Dave Grestini in his '03 Dodge Dakota topped the growing field of street cars. Dave and his father have been regulars with us since we got this party going in 2007. His dad has a great bright green '55 Chevy that we'd like to see come back.
DeMusis gets Comp Eliminator! Dave DeMusis went all the way to the finals to take top honors in Comp. Dave two weeks before managed to put a pushrod through a valve cover, so coming back to win the finals was even more rewarding. He also swapped out his drag radials for regular slicks. It was good to see him victory lane.
A quad takes Bike Eliminator again! Jake Longolucco becomes another repeat Holeshot Drag winner, but this time with a growing field of bikes. It's nice to see bikes go several rounds to get to the finals. I'm sure it was more fun for Jake.
We also are seeing more quads show up. Believe it or not, we're also seeing more go-karts and ATV's show too, some with kids runnig against the adults. It's great to see these kids getting a good start in the sport. All the adult racers pitch in to help them, whether it's to show them how to get a better light, or just help them get their racer started.
Anybody can race and win! This is a theme we've been trying to promote, and it seems to be working. First, you never know what's going to win, especially in Street Eliminator. Look what cars we've had in winners circle; A Hyundai, a Pontiac Vibe, a Chevy Colbalt, Ford Diesel trucks, a Dodge Dakota. Any car can win! Any driver can win!
What we really like is going throught the staging lanes and watching the friends that are racing each other. It's becoming the thing to do on a Friday night for more people, and we're glad to be part of it. No doubt we'll see more of that as the season progresses. Thursday, July 15th Mopar Shootout Night! Thanks to Auto Service of Old Saybrook for sponsoring this weeks event. We should have a great turnout of all types of Mopars, along with out regular show. WINNERS! Alex Albaugh won Street Eliminator in his Hyudai Tiburon. A Hyundai!!! He's been a regular with us, and it's great to see him take the trophy. Jon Tisdale won the Honda/Kawasaki Shootout with, of all things, his 450 Honda with an automatic! Consistant dial-ins, plus great reaction time allowed him to beat faster bikes. Cy Virgulto won Comp Eliminator with his great 40's Willys Gasser. Cy is definately a crowd pleaser with his fast machine. Jake Longolucco won the Bike Eliminator with his quad. Jake held off all the other bikes, and ended up beating a red-lighting Tisdale. Quads are becoming a regular addition to our Bike class. Friday, July 9th Kawasaki/Honda Shootout Tonight! New England CycleWorks is our sponsor tonight for our first motorcycle shootout. thanks to that great bunch. We anticipate a great field. We've been pleased with how good of a show the bikes have put on, and how the field is starting to grow. We have some faaast bikes coming tonight, but now that we're allowing dial-ins, it may not be the fastest bike that wins! We've seen it before this season where the slowest bike (Jon Tisdale) got the trophy because of great reaction time as well as a good dial-in. Mopar Shootout next week! Next week should be a great one when the Mopars roll into town. Auto Service of Old Sayborok is our sponsor for the July 16th event, and we expect a great time. verse field of Chryslers, Plymouths, Dodges, Jeeps (some were made under the Chrysler banner), etc. Bill Atwood of Auto Service has a couple of 60's style match cars with the altered wheelbase. these were the predecessors of the Funny Cars. Bill's fastest car runs in the 9's with his Hilborn injected Hemi powered racer. HDRA on the move. It looks as though we will be expanding our operation to dirt. The Marshfield Fair in MA is looking to have us do an event for street trucks on their fantastic pull track on August 28th. Our plan is to run the same types of trucks that pull in the Street Truck Pulls. Our thoughts are to run a dial-in system with our tree and timing system rather than classes, but that is yet to be determined. More to come on that. We will know for sure next week, but if this does happen, it will be an afternoon show on their last Saturday of their Fair week. We'll keep you posted. Wall Stadium and Oswego Speedway events coming up! Word is getting out about our outside events in NJ and NY. We will be running the same basic format at these two tracks that we are running at Waterford. We will run three Eliminators: Street, Comp, and Bike. We will have a rules page for our outside venues shortly, as they will vary slightly from what we do at the Speedbowl. Nothing drastic, just some refinements from what we learned at the CT shoreline speedway. Remember, Wall is August 15th, and Oswego is August 22nd. Our plan is run these events late afternoon to early evening, with a start time around 5-6pm, and finishing up between 8-9pm. We'll post exact start times here on the site. Wednesday, June 30th Burnout Blitz this Friday! Along with our regular racing this Friday, we will have a burnout contest. This will be open to anyone that wishes to participate. We are looking for the best burnout, not the longest. We will have a time limit of 15 to 20 seconds, which is plenty of time to make alot of smoke! We also are looking to have you put on a show without having to go out after and buy new tires. A trophy goes to the winner, and the winner will be determined by the crowd. Burnout competitors are also welcome to participate in the Holeshot Drags as long as you have a helmet. Monday, June 21st Honda-Acura Shootout this week! The front wheel drive racers invade the'Bowl this Friday, in addition to our regular show. This should be interesting, as there are alot of fast cars out there. We expect many cars from the Hartford and New Haven area to show. Winners from June 18th. The Mustang Shootout was a success. We had a real nice field of cars. Joe Grillo, from Ashaway, RI came out on top in that event. Joe runs a stick shift in a class that is dominated by automatics. Joe adds this trophy to his growing collection. Comp Eliminator was won by Dominic Crisanti in his Suburu. Dominic bested the faster all out racers by being better on the lights. Street eliminator was won by Matt Viscione in his Chevy Colbolt. Matt bested Paul Faucher's Chevy Cavalier in the final. Street Bike Eliminator was won by Eric Reiter and his Buell. The racers in Bike Eliminator keep impressing us with nice clean runs. They all have smiles on their faces. Street Bikes now run a dial-in. We thought there would be a problem running bikes with a dial-in, so we were running them heads up. We tried the dial in process a few weeks ago, and it did wonders on making the racing more even. Because we are now handicapping bikes, we are now considering allowing all bikes to run. JOn Tisdale ran one of the slowest bikes that we've ever had, but he was great on the tree, and took top honors. We'll keep you posted. Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! Keith and Heidi from Race Dog Photography do a great job taking pictures each week for us. Keith is the regular track photographer at the 'Bowl. As of this week, they now have a Friday Night page on their website in which you can view and purchase photos from each race. Their link www.racedogphotography.com is on our Sponsor News page as well as our Photos page. Monday, June 14th Mustang Shootout this week! This is going to be a big week for us coming up! Along with our regular show, we will be having a nice field of Mustangs. For those new to our Friday night gigs, this will be a real treat for you. It doesn't matter what kind of a Mustang you have; Classic, Stock, Modified, everybody has an equal and fair chance to win. Our timing system and tree allows full handicapping, giving the slower cars a head start. In theory, everyone should end up at the finish line at the same time. If you just want to join us for our Cruise, it's free to come in (as well as free to watch the Drags), and join the rest of the Cruise cars. It's just $5 to go into the pits, or it's $20 to race all night. All you need is a helmet! SPREAD THE WORD! We're coming to the Jersey Shore! Part of out the plan is to expand HDRA's operation to other tracks and states. We have confirmed a date at Wall Stadium for Sunday, August 15th for a one day show. More details are coming, but we can tell you that we are excited to head down there. Jim Morton runs a nice operation, and we plan on playing hooky the next day to hit the boardwalks! We'll provide more details soon! Monday, June 7th Diesel Shootout this week! It looks like we will have our largest field of racers this week as the diesel trucks invade the 'Bowl for their Shootout. We expect to see trucks from multiple states. For the first timers here's the skinny. We have a regular show in which everybody (cars and trucks) runs on a weekly basis. The 2 "Eliminators" are "Street" and "Comp". The majority of trucks will be in "Street". After the regular show, all the diesels will run by themselves for a second chance for a trophy. We have a full tree, and all vehicles during eliminations run a dial-in. This allows everybody to have an equal chance to win. We look forward to seeing the large field of trucks. The trucks that have run with us are a huge hit with the fans. Eliminations start later! In order to allow time for people to get to the track on a Friday night and still have time for some test & tune, we will start the eliminations at approximately 8pm. The 'Bowl's management wanted us to stick to their stock car timetable for reasons of consistantly, which has its merits. But it has become more obvious that our original timetable makes more sense. Sunday, May 30th Lots of changes this coming week, and all good! In a constant effort to streamline the operation, and improve the entertainment, we will be doingseveral things to put everything together. First, for the racers, we will now be using the north pits now that they are paved. Second, we will be changing the direction we race back to the way we started in the season. Third, we will be bringing in a DJ for the Cruise. This will put the spectators, Cruise participants, and racers all together in the first turn. Everybody will be close to the burnout boxes. If a spectator would like to go into the pits, the gate in the first turn will be open to go in. The refreshment stands are right there. Spectators will be close to the Cruise, and everybody will be able to enjoy the DJ. More later. Special thanks to Larry's auto Machine in Groton. CT for being this weeks sponsor! Friday, May 28th What a weekend we have coming up at the 'Bowl! Tonight we continue with our "Show n Go" Cruise & Drags. Tonight will include a Street Rod Shootout, along with our regular show. Tomorrow night, the IMSA Supermodifieds will be in town. They are scary fast winged big block powered racers... nothing is faster as these cars! Sunday is the Memorial Day Madness even. The X and Super X cars will be on hand, as well as a demo, a trailer race, plus more. A great family show! Speedbowl's newly paved drivway NO MORE DUST! It was a pleasure to drive on the property this week and find the entire driveway paved!Terry Eames had the entire length of the driveway paved, as well as the road going to the north pits, a portion of those pits, plus the entire length behind the grandstand. In the past, dust from the drive in and out has always been an issue. That is totally resolved. This was done, among other reasons, was to accomodate the weekly Cruise. We know that people spend alot of time cleaning their cars. They now will stay clean! Thursday, May 20th The weather looks GREAT for Friday! Unlike last week, the forcast for Friday looks perfect. Although the weather turned out good last week, the weatherman for days told everybody it was going to rain. Result? Many people made other plans, only to be dismayed to see the sun come out, and not have time to load the trailer. Many Cruises and other events that night in other parts of the state canceled in the morning, again relying on bad weather info. This week looks to be promising, with good car counts and a growing Cruise. We're going with the rules suggestions below. Until we see enough cars to produce additional classes, we are going with "Street" Eliminator, and "Competition" Eliminator. Street is for street legal cars that for the most part are daily drivers. Comp is for cars with race tires, slicks, DOT slicks, etc, modified street cars, and all-out racers. Everybody dials in their times, so all racing will be equal. We're still going with the bikes as written. We've been pleased with a couple things. First, the bikes have been running well. It must be that we've had a quality group of racers. Second, we're pleased as to how well the high horsepower cars are hooking despite the fact we don't spray the track. While traction isn't perfect, the cars aren't going up in smoke either. Racers, remember! You must have a helmet! No passengers allowed in race cars! Spread the word, and get your friends at the track tomorrow! We've got a great thing going! Let's keep it going! Saturday, May 15th Second show is in the books! Thanks to all that came out. Look for some changes in the rules and start times to help streamline and simplify the program. Here is what we are looking at. The 'Bowls management team wants us to open the pits at 5pm, and get test & tune started at 5:30. They also want us to start eliminations immediatley at 7pm. They run a tight ship on their other race nights, so we will take their lead on this issue. To run things more efficiently, we are also looking at just running "STREET" and "COMP" Eliminators. STREET BIKE" Eliminator remains unchanged. All cars that have raced with us in the past two weeks are eligible in one of these two classes. We can add the other classes when there enough to make a decent field. Our thoughts for Street Eliminator? Our intent was to have this class for the guy that has a regular street car, and wants to go racing and and go up against other cars like theirs. Tires must be regular street tires with a wear factor of 200 or higher. Cars with DOT drag radials and street drag tires normally have a wear factor of 0. These cars will fit into the "COMP" Eliminator, which also are allowed slicks. Anyone that has DOT drags radials usually have drivetrain modifications also. Everything is "dial-in" bracket racing, so racing should be very equal and entertaining. A final decision will be made in the next couple days, and posted on this site. Your thoughts are welcome. We are looking for a track announcer! If you or anyone you know would be interested, please shoot us an email or give us a call. Thursday, May 13th Right now it looks like the weather is going to cooperate with us Friday. Check the Speedbowl's website for the latest updates if weather appears to be in question. www.speedbowl.com STARTING TIMES: We are changing some times around to mirror the Speedbowls other nights of racing. Pits open at 5:00pm. Test & tune starts earlier at 5:30. Our goal is to start eliminations at 7pm. Front gate and Cruise will be at 5:30pm. Some pics below from our opening night! ...........................
Monday, May 10th FIRST NIGHT A SUCCESS! We had a nice field of cars for the Drags as well as the Cruise for our first event. We were fighting opening night glitches and gremlins which slowed things down for us, but everybody had a good time. Things will be smoother over the next couple of weeks. Results will be posted here in a day or two. we are waiting on pictures from "Racedog" Photos. Meanwhile, special thanks to all that helped and pitched in at the last minute. We couldn't have done it without your help. Wednesday, May 5th TIME OF EVENTS. We're making some slight adjustments to our starting times. PITS: Open at 5:00 CRUISE & FRONT GATE: Open at 5:30 TEST & TUNE: Starts at 6:00 By the number of calls and emails, it appears we'll have a great turnout for opening night! We're looking forward to seeing all of you! Tuesday, May 4th OPENING DAY IS ALMOST HERE! Today we are picking up our timing system from Portatree. We'll be spending the next couple of days putting a box of parts together to make a functioning timing system. Needless to say, we'll be busy. Thanks to everybody in helping put this thing together. I'm sure it'll take a week or two to get through any glitches before we have everything running like a swiss watch. We're going to have a long list of people to thank when this first event is in the books. We're getting alot of calls and emails on both the Drags and the Cruise. We expect a good turnout for the opener. It also appears the weather will be cooperating! More later. Spread the word! Friday, April 30th IT ALL STARTS NEXT WEEK! We're getting calls and emails from people ready to race. Some were trying to see if we were running tonight, but they'll have to just wait for the May 7th opener. Plan to get to the track as early as you can. There will be paperwork from both the Speedbowl as well as us to fill out. Gates officially open at 5:30, but we'll probably be ready at 5:00. Test and tune will start as close to 5:30 as possible. Opening night will be a rehearsal for all us, racers and track crew alike. For this reason, we will not start the points system until May 14th. This will allow us more time to get familiar with the timing system, and for the racers to get their cars tuned and set up. Everybody will get a permanant number to track those points. Waiting a week for points will allow us to get all the initial competitors into the system. Even though we are not running points the first night, we will still run a regular program with all "Eliminators". The plan is to start test and tune at 5:30, take a quick intermission at 8:00, then go to eliminations at 8:15 or so. Our plan is to be done and out of there by 9:30. THANKS TO EVERYBODY FOR THE GREAT RESPONSE! It's gratifying to get so many phone calls and emails from people that are happy to have a form of Drag Racing available to them. It's been a looooong wait since Connecticut Dragway closed 25 years ago. We are going to do everything we can to keep the "fun" factor in this gig. I really believe we have the right combination. HELMETS MANDATORY! Just a reminder, for all that are new to this gig, insurance regulations mandate that all racers wear a helmet. We're trying to see if we can get an exception for the Street Eliminator, but for right now, everyone needs a skid lid. ON YOUR MARK! for those of you running Street, Comp, or Nostalgia Eliminators, you will be adding and perhaps changing your dial-in for the eliminations. For you first timers, your dial-in time will be written on the window with a white marker (like white shoe polish). If you can, try to have your own marker to help us speed things along. Thanks! GO SPREAD THE WORD - DRAG RACING IS BACK IN CT! Monday, April 26th LESS THAN 2 WEEKS! ARE YOU READY? We're waiting on delivery of our new timing system... we're expecting delivery by the end of the week. We decided a long time ago to go with "Portatree". This is the same company that does a brisk business with practice trees (we recommend considering getting one) They build a good system, and they are within driving distance if we need any assistance. We're starting with a basic system, and will be doing regular upgrades throughout the season. The system (from another company)we had in 2007-2008 was not as sophisticated, but it did get the job done. It gave us a bunch of headaches though! BURNOUT PAD. One of the issues in running an event at a facility such as the Speedbowl is burnouts. In the past, we've had to limit racers to "rolling" burnouts. Stationary burnouts would quickly destroy an asphalt surface, something our hosts can't have. Our solution? It looks as though we have a line on steel plates, the thick ones you see on road construction. We'll know for sure in a couple days if this will happen, but it looks good. Our plan is to haul them out on to the track surface on race day, then take them off after each Friday night gig is over. We'll simply spray some water on them, let cars roll onto the plate, and let 'em smoke. This will be great for the racers that need heat in their tires, as well as the fans (who doesn't like a good burnout?). Wednesday, April 14th KOOKS OUTLAW ELIMINATOR. We welcome KOOKS Headers as a new sponsor for HDRA. They are sponsoring the OUTLAW ELIMINATOR for the season. KOOKS makes an absolute first class product, whether it be a catalog item, or custom "one-off" systems. They were a fixture on Long Island for years, but recently made the move down south to North Carolina. KOOKS has been with us since we got our start in 2007, and we look forward to continue working with them in the future. KARL'S EAST COAST. Another new sponsor, this one from Warwick, RI. While specializing in Mustangs, they are a full service Speed Shop for all makes and models. They have VP race fuel for sale, as well as alcohol. They also have a chassis dyno for those looking to get the best tune for their car. FUEL TRUCK TO BE ON HAND RACE NIGHTS. For those who want race fuel at the track, we just learned the Sunoco fuel truck will be manned on Friday nights. While they only supply leaded fuel for the stock cars, they will have 110 unleaded on hand for the Friday night street cars. As most of you know, if you have catalytic convertors, you must run unleaded. 
Monday, April 26th Anybody know this car? We met the owner of this really cool, but we screwed up and didn't get his name & number. If anybody can pass that info along, we'd appreciate it. It's a genuine "Barnfind", as it sat in a California barn for 30 years. This car, according to the owner, did over 150mph at Bonneville decades ago. Anyway, he's on the ever growing list of people excited about the Friday night Drags & Cruise, and plans to down our way on a regular basis. HDRA on the move! We've never made it a secret that we will be expanding our form of racing to other areas & tracks. While we are looking close to home, we will be agressively seeking new markets up and down the coast. We have contacted Oswego Speedway (NY), and have a tentative midweek date of August 18th or 19th (Wed. or Thur.). Nothing is etched in stone right now, but we will be firming things upponce we both get through our openers. Oswego is an absolute first class 5/8 mile paved oval. Their headline class is the Super Modifieds... they are scary fast! Expect more dates and facilities added to the HDRA schedule. Tuesday, March 30th New changes to our home page. Our latest news will be on this page. Older news will be archived to our "HDRA News" page. This is in an effort to simplify and make it more readable for those new to our events. We just had too much for one page. Less than 6 weeks to go! It's gratifying to see the interest continue to build. Every day new people learn that Drag racing is back in Connecticut. For those new to us that are looking to race, go to the "Rules" page to get an idea of the different classes. Very simply, any car can be raced and have a chance to win. Our handicapping system makes all cars, fast or slow, competitive. For those that raced with us in 2007/2008, we are now allowing all-out race cars to compete. Below are pictures of some of the cars that will be showing up. More later. Keep those pictures coming! Friday, March 19th We welcome two new sponsors! ALTERED IMAGE CUSTOMS from Plainfield will be sponsoring 2 nights; the May 28th, "Street Rod & Gasser Shootout", and the June 11th "Diesel Shootout".It's pretty amazing taking a tour of the shop... they do everything from Rods to Lowriders to nosebleed height 4x4's. We also welcome MANCHESTER MOTORSPORTS, a division of Manchester Honda. They will be sponsoring the "Honda-Acura Shootout" on June 25th. We went up to see them Wednesday... the complex is huge! They do a big business on high performance parts for the Hondas and Acuras. June 25th was the date for the "B.O.P. Shootout, which will now be moved. We will announce the new date shortly. GEARS. There are many racers building cars now that a race track is within reasonable driving distance. One of the questions that comes up is what gear to run. Our suggestion is to run 1/4 mile gears. Two reasons. First, cars will launch fine. Second, now that you have a car, perhaps you now have the itch to go racing elsewhere on a Saturday or Sunday... your gearing is already set up for the 1/4 mile, and you don't have to change your car. Now, if you have a rear like the Ford 9" where you can swap out the pumpkin fairly easy, perhaps having an 1/8 mile gear would better suit the car for our venue, but that all depends on what tranny you're running, and how well your car will hook up. Only you can make that determination. The weather is breaking, and the opening day is getting closer. Keep those pics coming! We now have classifieds! Wednesday, March 10th We have now added a "Classified" page on our site, and it's free! We're keeping it car oriented, we prefer mostly high performance stuff (that's a technical term). Newest ads will be placed on top, older ones will drop down. We will do our best to accomodate pictures, but we're not turning your ad into a photo collection. To place an ad, simply email us at sparky@100footdrags.com and we will place it within a day or so. Please do your best to write it as best you can. We're not keen on having to edit other people's ads, nor do we want to be correcting an ad full of spelling errors. Ex: the things that stop your car are "brakes" not "breaks". Craigslist can be very entertaining. Anyway, if needed, we will be making changes as we go along and fine tune it. Make sure you know who you are dealing with, and watch out for the scammers! We found the tree & timing system from CT Dragway! The current owner may part with it, but we're not sure yet. Really enjoyed talking to him about it the other day. Even if he does part with it, we're not sure whether it will suit our needs, nor do we know if it is reliable, and can be fixed if it breaks (or is it "brakes"?) down. Our bet is that it's around 30 years old or better. We've been looking at Portatree for to handle our timing needs, and that is realistically the direction we'll take. They make real nice equipment, and we know if there's a problem, it will absolutely get fixed. Keep spreading the word! Keep sending pictures!  
Friday, March 5th AND THE PHONE CALLS OF NEW RACERS KEEP COMING IN: While we've been concentrating on cars from the Comp, Outlaw, and Nostalgia eliminators, we can't ignore the all important Street Eliminator. Bob Pepe jr., the owner of the Z28 Camaro pictured above, just got added to the list of new people that will part of our Friday night extravaganza. While all types of cars will be found in Street, Bob's Camaro is probably typical of what will be found in that class. Understandably, he can't wait for the May 7th opener. Also, interest in the Street Bike Eliminator is growing as well, as more riders find out we have a place for them in oour 100 foot Drags. Whilwe don't have a specific class for them, we also welcome quads if they wish to make some passes. The quad shown above had one of the fastest times of the day! SPREAD THE WORD! TELL YOUR FRIENDS! SEND EMAILS ABOUT OUR SITE! Tuesday, March 2nd NEW SPONSOR FOR THE PONY CAR SHOOTOUT: We welcome ATOMIC PERFORMANCE to our growing list of HDRA sponsors. Check out their website at www.atomicperformance.com . If you need it, they probably have it. They will be the sponsors for our "Pony Car Shootout" on September 10th. The cars eligible include, of course, Mustangs, Camaros, Firebirds, but also include Barracudas, Challengers, Javelins & AMX's (remember them?). Did we forget any cars? I'm sure we did. Shoot us an email to help fill the list. FEB/MAR NEWSLETTER: We have a new newsletter out which gives an overall view of what the season will look like. It also has a brief description of the classes we will be running. Our last newsletter was used mostly to show sponsor prospects how the newsletter would look. This new edition is more to get information out to the public. We had a small initial printing, and those copies are already gone. This was done on purpose. This author is known to have clumsy fingers on the keyboard, and spelling is not our strong point. Combine that with the fact that some of the work was done at 2am, and well, let's just say we will have new copies available tomorrow. We're still looking for a way to get this on our website in a way that it's readable. This author is still fumbling around learning the ways of the web. Have a shop or business in which having some copies on the counter would get out to new racers or fans? Let us know, and we'll get some out to you. THE OOPS DEPARTMENT: Larry's Auto Machine is one of our good sponsors that signed on, and we screwed up their phone number in their ad. The proper number to reach them is 860-449-9112. The number we put in was their fax. Our apologies. The new printing goes out tomorrow with the correct number. That'll teach me to put these things together at 2am. Monday Feb. 22nd SCHEDULE CHANGES: We've made some changes to the schedule to accomodate our new sponsors, which are now reflected on our schedule page. As we sell more sponsorships, we suspect other changes will come, so keep an eye on that page. One change is the June 4th show, now sponsored by LARRY'S AUTO MACHINE, which replaces the Corvette Shootout. Anyone with an engine from Larry's will be eligible for that event. The Corvette Shootout is moved to August 20th. The Cadillac Shootout is moved to Sunday, July 18th during our Mid-season Championship. The Buick Shootout is now the "B.O.P. Shootout". Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs are all invited to this event. They're all great cars, and we felt they should be accomodated. Sunday, Feruary 21st We welcome new sponsors to our growing list: Larry's Auto Machine out of Groton, CT will be sponsoring "Larry's Auto Machine Shootout night" on June 4th. Anyone with an engine from Larry's is eligible for that additional event. We will be moving the Corvette Shootout to another night. Larry's has a complete machine shop and engine building facility, complete with a dyno room. They have plans to add a chassis dyno. Tires plus Brakes will be sponsoring the Memorial Day Weekend event on May 21st. "Tires Plus" is a full repair shop located in East Lyme, CT, specializing in wheels and tires. They're located right next to the Stop & Shop. Boost Mobile of New London will be sponsoring the June 18th "Mustang Shootout" night. Located on Coleman St., they have become the unofficial phone provider for the HDRA. Great phones, on the Sprint network, unlimited talk and text for 50 bucks. You can't beat it. We will be making some changes to this site, as we will be adding more pages. We will have a "Sponsor's News" page, as well as a page for all the pictures we're collecting. NEWSLETTER TIME: We are putting together a Feb/Mar newsletter together this week. Anyone with a shop or business that needs copies for their customers? Shoot us an email so we can get them to you. NEW PAGES ADDED: We are in the process of adding new pages for the Cruise, pictures, and most important, our sponsors. We will be adding to the pages this week. We have several objectives. First, we need to clean up the home page. It's too cluttered, and we need to make it easier to find information. Second, everybody would be better served with a page just for the pictures. We want to keep the ones we have as well as keep adding new ones as they come in. Third, and most important, we want to get information out there about our sponsors, and what they do. We want to do everything we can to send business their way. They help make racing for you possible. Please return the favor by patronizing them. We'll be adding to these pages this week. Opening day is getting closer...getting exciting, isn't it! More later. Tuesday, Feb. 16th It's been a little while since we posted here. Sorry for the delay. We relocated to a nicer office, but it took longer to get the internet switched over than anticipated. Anyway, the word keeps spreading about the Friday night Drags & Cruise, and the number of hits on this site shows. In the next week, you'll see additional pages to accomodate our growing list of sponsors, as well as the pictures that keep coming in. Keep sending them! More later. Keep in mind, we're less than 3 months away from our opener! Don't forget our speed shop sponsors; Swift Performance (Norwich), Don's Speed Shop (Newington), B & B Performance (Branford). Friday, Feb. 5th We'll be at the Maratta Custom Car Show in Hartford, CT at the EXPO Center this weekend all day Saturday & Sunday. We'd love to meet you all in person. It'd be a great time to get any questions answered. As always, suggestons are always welcome. We'll be at the "Speedbowl" booth, so stop by! While we're there, we have plans to get together with Dennis Tate from the TV show, "Cars & Us". He will be taping enough to fill two shows. We plan on getting together to be interviewed for the upcoming Holeshot Drags season. Dennis is a big supporter of the concept (we've been on two shows already), and he's really big on the old time Gassers. We'll be seeing him throughout the season. We massaged the classes a little bit to alleviate our concerns on tracking points for the season. We originally planned on having 4 indexes, from slow to fast. One possible problem that came up was keeping track of points of cars and/or drivers that are right on the fence between 2 indexes... if a car gets faster as the season progresses, it's possible that they would end up switching to a faster index. We had no way of transfering the points and be fair if they did this. So our solution is to go back to having street legal cars run "Street Eliminator" and modified street cars and all-out race cars run "Competition Eliminator". This will make it easier for a competitor to stay in one eliminator, and therefore retain points. Both run a dial-in, bracket style. At this time we feel the points should go with the driver, so that seems to be consistant with other tracks. Regarding electronics, they will not be allowed on Street and Nostalgia Eliminators (we're trying to get info on Jr. Dragsters). Electronics are allowed on the Competition Eliminator, as well as both Outlaw Eliminators. Every week we keep learning of new Gassers that will be running with us, so we felt that having their own "Eliminator" would make for a great show. We'll be fine tuning rules, such as year cutoff, etc. there's alot of these cars that have been sitting in garages for years, and this is just what they need to blow off the cobwebs and bring them out. We also know that alot of guys liked the heads-up concept of the "Outlaw Eliminator", but may not be competitive against the 500+ cu. in. cars with multiple power adders. Solution? Another heads-up "Outlaw" class called "Outlaw 2.5". Same rules as "Outlaw", such as a heads-up 0.400 Pro tree, but with a 2.50 breakout rule. This class will be perfect for the typical modified small block Street/Strip car, the car that would run 11's and 12's in the quarter mile. For the guys with the tuners, the fact that we're allowing slicks should be welcome news. The modified FWD cars usually had traction issues. Running slicks should prove to be a good solution. We're always looking for new pictures... we're missing pics of the FWD contingent, so guys, send 'em in! Time to wrap this up for now. See all of you at the show this weekend! Sunday, Jan. 31st Well, January is in the books, putting us closer to days that will be warmer. Spring can't come soon enough for us! Believe it or not, we're about 10 weeks away from our opener... hard to imagine. From the "brain fade" department: We've been asking people to send pictures. Of course, not being as computer savvy as we should be, we failed to realize that you can't send them from our contact page. Oops... time to fix that. Our apologies. You can email us directly by sending to sparky@100footdrags.com . They should get to us. If not, give us a call at the shop at 860-772-2058. We'd like to welcome B&B Performance in Branford, CT as the left lane sponsor. They join right lane sponsor Swift Performance from Norwich in a growing list of HDRA sponsors for the 2010 season. We will be doing articles on both in the upcoming issue of our newsletter, as well as coverage here on the site. Wednesday, Jan. 27th We're getting calls and emails from all over the place. The word is really starting to get out about our Friday night gig. Keep it going! Keep sending pictures! We love 'em We plan on attending the Maratta show the first weekend of Feb. (a week and a half from now). Dennis Tate from the TV show "Cars & Us" will be there. We're going to try to get together to get an interview with me for an upcoming show. We've been on before, and it got us some nice publicity. Dennis is a hardcore Dover Dragway fan. Sunday, Jan. 24th We'd like to welcome two new sponsors for our 2010 season. First, SWIFT MOTORSPORTS in Norwich, CT will be sponsoring the right lane, as well as all the Cruise nights. Swift has a tremendous facility, complete with a wheel dyno which can be set up for 2wd or AWD. They currently have a new Camaro project car in which they have added a turbo. They have plans to make this into a kit. We'll be posting pictures of this car. About 540 HP on 5-1/2 pounds of boost!!! This car will be at our Friday night events. Our other new sponsor is JO-DI's Sound & Performance Center in New London, CT. They will be sponsoring the May 7th opening night "Tuners vs Domestic Shootout", plus the "Tuner Shootout" on August 6th. While JO-DI's can hook anybody up with a great sound system, they also deal in performance parts and their installation for all cars. Stop by and see 'em! PICTURES: The pictures are just starting to come in. We have pics of a 10 second Monza on their way, and possibly pics of a wheelie van that will make its way down to the 'Bowl. JUST STOP AND THINK WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE: This is shaping up to be an amazing season. Drag Racing is back in Connecticut after over 25 years of nothing. People are chomping at the bit to go back racing. Anything and everything will be coming out of the woodwork to race with us on Friday nights. Cars that may not be legal for 1/4 milers won't have to stay parked... they'll be with us. A Car Cruise, which will add an atmosphere unlike anything else to the Drags. The Drags... adding an element to the Cruise that no other Cruise can match. Nostalgia Gassers, all-out heads-up high horsepower "Outlaw" door slammers, Street rods, Tuners, Street cars, people racing Mom's car, Motorcycles, Jr Dragsters... you name it, and it'll be racing here. This combination of Drags and Cruise every week is going to create something amazing! This won't be just a Friday night event... it's going to be a happening! This will be the place to be... a weekly festival that everybody will plan their Friday night around! The word is spreading, and it's growing. Thanks to all those helping get the word out, and please keep doing it. We're all going to be part of something that is going to be huge! Tuesday, Jan. 19th There's alot of excitement in the air for the Friday Night Drags& Cruise at the 'Bowl this season. We know of several cars that will be running the heads-up "OUTLAW" class... we're going to see alot of FAST cars this summer. We also know of cars built or being built just for the Bracket Races on our 100 foot format. We have been told by people that they would like to send pics of their cars they'll be using to compete. Please send them and we'll post them. As many of you can imagine, sponsorship is the lifeblood af any race operation. We are going full force with our Sponsorship Program as of today. We're keeping it simple. We are publishing a weekly newsletter (monthly from Feb. - April) that will be given to spectators and racers FREE! You have a business that could use a cost effective way to reach potential customers? Place an ad with our newsletter. Placing an ad will make your business a partial or total sponsor for an event. Sponsor a night. Sponsor a lane. Sponsor the a Cruise night. Don't have a business, or don't have anything left in the budget, but still want to participate? For $20 you can sponsor one foot of the race track. We started this program this afternoon, and already have a couple feet sold. You'll be listed on our website, and you'll get a card certifying your sponsorship. Look at our new "Newsletter" page. Keep in mind that it's a work-in-process, and it needs alot of tweeking. A brief explaination of our sponsorship program is on that page also. We need to find a better way to put the newsletter on this site, so we will be receptive to constructive ideas. SPREAD THE WORD! DRAG RACING IS BACK IN CONNECTICUT! Wednesday, Jan. 13th It was great to see the turnout we had last night for our first rules meeting. Some new faces, and some faces we haven't seen since we last had the tree. We're going to have some FAST cars showing up, including participants for our new heads-up "OUTLAW" CLASS. We're also expecting some old time Gassers to running with us on a regular basis. We also see where some people are going to build cars just to go racing with us. DRAG RACING IS BACK IN FULL FOCE IN CONNECTICUT! Everybody gave great feedback, and now we have some homework to do. We'll have the rules a little more refined by next week. We have to get some questions answered by the Speedbowl operators first before we get everything resolved. We have a meeting with them tomorrow. Some of the questions dealt with building a burnout pad (anybody with connections with a concrete business?), helmets, passengers, etc. The main objective was to emphasize safety. No surprise here, but everybody was in agreement that the Cruise done in combination with the Drags is going to be an absolute home run. The atmosphere is going to be unlike anything else. Right now, we are going to be concentrating on landing sponsorships for each event. We'll soon be posting a page on how businesses or clubs can benefit from becoming involved in our sponsorship program. The rates will be quite affordable too. We'll be back updating the site in the next day or two. Any feedback or questions? Shoot us an email! Meanwhile, get on the phones and internet and go spread the word! Thursday, Dec. 24th We're in the process of adding to the rules. It's a work-in-process. We've started to clarify how we will run the races during each event, as well as starting to add safety items. We have more work to do, and suggestions are welcome. As it stands right now, we will be running 8 eliminators each night. All "Street" and "Modified" cars will be run together, and divided between 4 indexes (each being an eliminator). Dial-in will be permissable within each index; competitors cannot run faster than their chosen index. Index A: 2.49 and faster Index B: 2.50 - 2.99 Index C: 3.00 - 3.49 Index D: 3.50 and slower There will most likely be special separate races during the season for just "Street" cars, as well as "Modified". There will also be four other eliminators: Outlaw, Jr. Dragster, Motorcycle, plus whatever the Shootout is for the event. The "rules" page has more info and details. During out first ever "Nationals" in October, we plan to run all the "Shootouts", as well as`all the other regular Eliminators during the weekend. There could be 30 or more "Eliminators" during those 3 days! For those that don't know yet, we're bringing back the tree and full timing system, complete with time slips, dial-ins, index, heads-up pro tree, etc. We will NOT have a 60 foot time available on the slip for multible reasons. First, the finish line is just past that mark. Second, because we are using a stock car track that has other events on it, we are not allowed to spray the surface with a traction compound as it would create a dangerous situation for their Saturday night events. Because of this, comparing your 60 foot times from other facilities would be futile. Since our format is totally different from traditional drags, we are toying with having a 6 foot time printed on the slip. This would be more relevant and unique to our distance and format. More later.
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