Brownsburg, Indiana becoming the next Charlotte?
Written by David Lamm · September 8, 2004
Drag racing started on the west coast back in the 1950’s and eventually moved east. Stock car racing started primarily in the south and has moved everywhere. NASCAR’s roots are still in the south with most teams based near Charlotte, North Carolina. Just in the past few years, many of the top drag racing teams formerly based in California are moving outside of Indianapolis. If you think about it, it makes sense.
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With 23 events on the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series stretching from LA to New York to Seattle to Atlanta and all points in between, NHRA teams were logging a lot of miles just to get to the races. Finding a more centralized location to start from makes more sense to lower costs and keep the crew working on the car rather than spending it at truck stops. Much like in his racing career; Don Prudhomme was the pioneer of this exodus east. Prudhomme moved his race shop from Vista, Calif. to Brownsburg, Ind. a few years ago and has been pleased with his choice. He still keeps his shop in California for the off season but many of the other nitro teams have followed suit. Kenny Bernstein opened a shop in Brownsburg, John Force has one and Don Schumacher just recently broke ground on a 100,000-square-foot facility there. The only other west coast based team with multiple cars that has not made the move is the Worsham team. They are still based in Orange County, California but might be looking into moving soon.
Not only does the central location to the 23 races make financial sense, Indianapolis Raceway Park is just a few miles down the road. Weather permitting; these teams can test their cars at a moment’s notice. The NHRA is headquartered in Glendora, Calif. and has been there for quite some time. With the amount of travel the NHRA officials have to do it might be less time and expense in the long run if the offices were moved too. I am not suggesting to Brownsburg or Indianapolis, but somewhere more centralized like Dallas or St. Louis. In the sport of drag racing the race teams always are ahead of the curve when it comes to making things go faster and run smoother. When a few more race teams make the move maybe Brownsburg will challenge Charlotte as the home of the fastest machines in the world?
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