Open GatesPerformance Racing Industry

Steve Statham

February 1, 2023

Open Gates

Test-and-tune events at the drag strip offer a ground-level snapshot of the state of the sport.

Healthy numbers of competitors for test-and-tune nights at the drag strip and packed grandstands for ‘run whatcha brung’ events are positive signs for the motorsports industry. The opposite is true as well. If nobody is coming through the gate for practice passes, it’s a bad omen.

Test-and-tune events are an important part of any drag strip’s economic model, but they are also a barometer for the health of motorsports in general. Test and tunes are racing at its most grassroots and are critical for reaching the next generation of young racers. It is the easiest point of entry in all of motorsports, the first place that legions of future racers will experience a car on a race track. Anyone can pull up to the starting line if they have a car capable of passing tech inspection, and practice skills, master techniques, and experience the thrill of driving a car flat-out. Being able to line up against a buddy for an impromptu best two-out-of-three challenge only adds to the fun.

We reached out to tracks with healthy test-and-tune events for insights into what works, who is showing up, and how to reach new drivers. One thing the tracks all had in common was an incredible variety of vehicles that come through the gates for test and tune.

“We get everything from Corvettes, Camaros, and Mustangs to Teslas. I’ve seen Plymouth minivans with turbochargers on them, they come out here,” said Ben Faucette of GALOT Motorsports Park, Dunn, North Carolina. “Some of the stuff you see you might wish had stayed at the house, as far as leaking and that stuff goes. But for the most part it’s okay.”

Irwindale Speedway, in Irwindale, California, is a motorsports complex that includes an eighth-mile drag strip. It too sees a broad spectrum of participants. “We’ve got a Smart Car, an ice cream truck, to full-blown pro street dragsters. It’s literally completely across the board,” said Irwindale’s Tim Huddleston.

Test and tunes at Carolina Dragway are drawing “a lot more late-model Camaros, Mustangs, Challengers, and Chargers, and a younger crowd coming in with that,” said Jimmy Owen. With the influx of late-model cars, he sees “less of the heads-up, all-out race car stuff.”

Cedar Creek Dragway, an eighth-mile track in Kemp, Texas, southeast of Dallas, bills itself as “The #1 Test-N-Tune track” where racers can test anytime the track is open. “We allow anything to go down the track as long as they have a helmet and that kind of stuff. There are some kids that come out with go-karts with their families. That’s something that is low budget, but they can have a good time and be with their family,” said Daniel Hux.

“Some people come out in golf carts,” he continued. “They don’t run fast, but they don’t have to run fast. They’re just going down learning how to push the brake, push the gas pedal, all those fundamentals.”

Modern Muscle

Variety is a given, but there are still some trends at test and tunes that are hard to miss. The late-model muscle car boom has transformed this scene at many tracks and lured a generation eager to find out just how fast their Mustangs, Challengers, and Camaros are. With many of these cars capable of ETs that were A/FX territory in the 1960s, a hassle-free night gathering timeslips is tailor-made for mastering these powerful cars.

Carolina Dragway in Aiken, South Carolina, an NHRA sanctioned quarter-mile track, is one facility that has witnessed the modern muscle wave. “What we’re seeing now is a lot more of your late-model Camaros, Mustangs, Challengers, and Chargers, and a younger crowd coming in with that,” said Jimmy Owen. “That’s where we’re starting to aim our focus, to that crowd. Not that we don’t want the other guys—we do, and we do things for them, too—but we’re starting to see that newer generation come in. That’s the future, and that’s what you’ve got to focus on.

“I’ve seen that the last couple of years. It’s like any other form of racing—bracket racing, heads-up racing, grudge racing, whatever you’re into—it goes through periods of change. The last year or so, we saw some of that changing a little bit with a slowing down of what I would call the traditional grudge crowd. There are a lot more options for those guys to go to this time of year, but even prior to that, this summer we started seeing more of an influx of the later-model cars and less of the heads-up, all-out race car stuff.”

“We’re definitely booming with Fox-body Mustangs, Camaros, street cars,” said Irwindale’s Huddleston. “You can literally go buy a drag race car right off the shelf, straight from the showroom.”

Some tracks attract the late-model muscle car crowd with impromptu events that skirt the line between test and tune and structured classes. “We decided, ‘Okay, we’re going to do a little shootout tonight for late-model, 2008-and-newer street-driven cars. Must drive it through the gate,’” Owen explained. “That seems to attract some of those guys, and we just build on that. You get them in there one time, and they like it, you treat them nice, and they come back with a friend next time.

“It’s like marketing with any other form of racing,” Owen continued. “You’ve got to respect your customer. You have to attract that customer to come in, and you have to treat them nice when they get there so they come back.”

Innovation Situation

Besides running traditional test-and-tune formats, the track representatives we spoke with were also implementing events that, in essence, run parallel to test and tune and bring in different types of newcomers.

“We run probably 100 events a year on our drag strip. We do a run-what-you-brung every single Thursday night, 5–10 p.m.,” Huddleston said. “We have an eighth-mile drag strip and then we have a one-of-a-kind burnout stadium. It’s a 2,000-seat stadium, 140 x 100, and we call it the Burnout Box. You can just go in there and shred tires. That rocks every Thursday night. And then, whether on Saturday or Sunday of the weekend, we do a drag race and a car show. We call them Sunday Fun Days where you just come out and test and tune. We do grudge racing, heads-up match racing, best two-out-of-three. Crazy stuff like that.”

Today, tracks from coast to coast are reporting an incredible variety of cars coming through the gates for test-and-tune sessions. “We allow anything to go down the track as long as they have a helmet and that kind of stuff,” said a source.

The burnout stadium attracts its own audience and delivers a different run-whatcha-brung experience. “It’s a different crowd. The Burnout Box guys come with two or three sets of tires in the back of their truck, and they change out their good tires and put junk tires on the back, and they pretty much hang out on that side of the property. Every now and again you’ll have them cross over, but it’s usually two events going on at the same time,” Huddleston continued. “There’s a lot more spectators than competitors. A lot of music, it’s real music- and atmosphere-driven over at the Burnout Box.”

Besides their regular Thursday night Test n’ Tune and Grudge Race, Carolina Dragway has been hosting a monthly Coffee and Cars meet at the track for several years that expanded into a second Test n’ Tune. “It works out really well. They would go to a parking lot at a shopping center or something like that, and as it got larger, they were taking up more of a footprint in the parking lot, and the stores would run them off,” Owen said. “So they like coming to the race track. The first few we did years ago, they just wanted to do the car show. Well, with a race track, why can’t we go down the race track? Well, you can. So we started opening that up to a Saturday Test n’ Tune and Coffee and Cars car show.”

As with Irwindale’s Burnout Box, the Coffee and Cars event at Carolina Dragway tends to attract a different crowd, more show car oriented than hardcore racer. “We don’t prep the track like you would for the Thursday test and tune,” Owen said.

Cedar Creek Dragway maintains a “family-friendly environment where they can come out and have a good time with their vehicle, whether it be a street vehicle or a race car on a trailer,” said Daniel Hux. Opportunities to make several passes “is the biggest draw.”

“Another thing we’ve done with our street car guys, since Thursday is an odd night for some of these guys, some asked if we could do a Saturday test and tune,” Owen continued. “Normally for Saturdays, we’re either bracket racing or we’ve got some structured event we’re doing. So the off Saturdays that we’ve had, we would just once a month do a Saturday street car test and tune. That’s how we bill it, and that’s what it is. If you want to bring your pro mod in and test it, just know that it’s street car Saturday, and the track is going to be prepped for those guys. On those days we cater to our street car guys and make them feel a little special.”

Business Tuning

For many tracks, test and tune is just one element of a crowded calendar, but for Cedar Creek Dragway it’s the central plank of the business model. “We have our events here and there, but mostly just test and tune,” Hux said. “You can have a big event, but everybody still wants a test and tune. You can put $5,000 or $10,000 out there, and you may bring in people, but you’re still going to have the majority of people watch test and tune or grudge races. We’ve always been known as a test-and-tune track. You can come out there, get going, and figure out how cars work, get familiar with it.”

Hux believes that Cedar Creek Dragway may be the second oldest continuously operating track in Texas, and it has seen plenty of tracks come and go. “They try to do these big money things and guarantee this and that, and they lose a lot of money. It’s a business. People are supposed to have fun, and I’m not saying they don’t at the big-money events, but I think a lot of fun is really missed on that. We have test and tune and people come and cook out. We allow people to cook and grill. Not a lot of tracks do, but we do. It’s a family-friendly environment where they can come out and have a good time with their vehicle, whether it be a street vehicle or a race car on a trailer.”

Properly promoting test-and-tune events “is like marketing with any other form of racing,” said a source. “You’ve got to respect your customer. You have to attract that customer to come in, and you have to treat them nice when they get there so they come back.”

Hux said that a good test-and-tune night will attract 100 to 120 cars, with opportunities for several passes. “That would be the biggest draw, that they are able to get on the track way more than most other places,” he said.

GALOT Motorsports Park draws from Raleigh and smaller towns along the I-95 corridor, and for it as well, a triple-digit number of competitors for test and tune is common. “On a big test-and-tune night, we might have 120 cars and motorcycles running,” Faucette said. “A lot of guys are repeat customers. There are a lot of guys with Hellcats or Mustangs that come out in groups of three or four and run against each other as many times as they can as time permits.”

Although some tracks like Cedar Creek Dragway are content to stay focused on maintaining a healthy test-and-tune crowd, others, like Irwindale, seek to transition them to structured classes. “We push them hard to get into our Summit ET class. That’s huge,” Huddleston said. “We’ve had a lot of our ‘just show up’ test-and-tune people that convert into bracket racers.”

Test and tune has long been an entry point for the beginner and a practice session for the more experienced racer, both of which are vital functions for the health of the sport. “I always press fundamentals,” Hux said. “Learn the car, don’t try to go fast. Understand the car. That’s what we’re there for. And once they do, they’re a much better driver and way safer.”

Another strength of run-whatcha-brung-type events is the lack of pressure on the racer. There aren’t any high stakes involved, no payout to sweat over. Drivers can just practice and have fun. “We’re just laid back, with a laid-back atmosphere. They’re not uptight about anything. They’re just laid back and having a good time,” Hux said.