If there was one competitors that felt proper at dwelling throughout AMSOIL Summernats USA’s first go to to Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, it was HOT ROD True Road. However that should not shock anybody conversant in the historical past of both program.

Australia’s Summernats has spent almost 40 years encouraging lovers to drive, race, cruise, and easily use their vehicles as an alternative of treating them like museum items. HOT ROD True Road asks for a lot of the identical factor. Carry an actual avenue automobile (legally registered and insured), drive it on the highway, then show what it may well do on the dragstrip. Muscle Mustangs & Quick Fords journal launched the format in 1993, on the Enjoyable Ford Weekend occasion in Norwalk, Ohio.

The idea was and nonetheless is easy. Opponents first full a compulsory avenue cruise earlier than returning on to the staging lanes for 3 consecutive quarter-mile passes. Between the cruise and the runs, the hood stays closed. Outdoors cooling is not permitted. No baggage of ice, aside from water-to-air intercooler methods. No turning the staging lanes into a brief engine store earlier than the following cross. The elapsed instances from all three runs are averaged, rewarding consistency as an alternative of 1 spectacular hero cross. The components labored to start with, and it nonetheless works now.

That is precisely why bringing HOT ROD True Road to Summernats USA makes good sense. Ask lovers the place in the present day’s drag-and-drive motion started, and, relying on who you are speaking to, HOT ROD Drag Week will most likely dominate the dialog. That is a good reply, but it surely overlooks a vital chapter within the model’s historical past.

One Hellcat Related Two Road Automotive Traditions

If there was one competitor who embodies the whole lot we’re about, it’s David Lipps. He captured HOT ROD Drag Week 2026’s Quickest Road Machine Eliminator honors. Competing in a class constructed round a ten.00-second index, David averaged 10.0660 seconds at 139.060 mph over 5 days of racing and freeway driving, demonstrating precisely the sort of consistency Drag Week has at all times showcased.

As an alternative of parking his 2018 Dodge Charger Hellcat after Drag Week, David made a beeline for Indy. And the consequence was one other spectacular efficiency. Driving the identical automobile, he recorded a ten.133-second common in HOT ROD True Road, ok to complete as the general runner-up.

His exhibiting in True Road reinforces a precept we’ve stood on for years. The vehicles that survive Drag Week do not cease being aggressive when the occasion ends. They proceed proving themselves wherever related purported avenue vehicles are anticipated to carry out.