DRAGSTALGIA: THE HISTORIC SCENE

Santa Pod was a late arrival on the historic drag racing scene, already emerging 25 years ago, but its Dragstalgia meeting – launched only in 2011 – has quickly become the annual highlight for the retro drag racing and hot rodding community.

Nostalgia-themed groups abound and Nostalgia racecars come in all shapes and sizes, from vintage American stockers through altereds (Competition Altered: a Sportsman eliminator comprising multiple classes of vehicles with productionline origins and altered for competition purposes) and roadsters to full-tilt dragsters and nitro Funny Cars, and there’s a similar array of motorcycles too.

In 2014, the programme stepped up a gear with a pair of American Fuel Altereds – historically the hairiesthandling machines ever to grace a dragstrip. Rat Trap and Pure Hell had already made an impression at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and now ran here for the first time on a European dragstrip, their proper environment. Ron Hope brings Rat Trap ( above) back to Dragstalgia this year, accompanied this time by Randy Bradford’s ‘Fiat Topolino’.

SANTA POD TODAY

Santa Pod Raceway is a busy place, staging events every weekend from February to November (except August Bank Holiday) and sometimes midweek too, in a range of forms – enthusiast events, lifestyle events, celebrations of individual car marques, family entertainment shows, and frequent public track days (known as Run What Ya Brungs). The leading drag racing events incorporate rounds of the MSA British Drag Racing Championship, which is run for Pro Mod machines and which runs all its rounds at Santa Pod.

TRACK

Festival of Power The Main Event (FIA European Championship Round 1) Summer Nationals Mopar Euro Nationals European Finals (FIA European Championship Round 6) National Finals