PUNCH YOUR LIGHTS OUT

SOUTH GEORGIA MOTORSPORTS PARK HASN’T EARNED THE NICKNAME ‘HOME OF THE FLYING CARS’ FOR NOTHING!

RADIAL-tyre drag racing might just be a cult – and if it is, South Georgia Motorsport Park (SGMP) is its Jonestown. Three times a year, thousands of devotees of the stiffsidewall rubber make a pilgrimage to the tiny town of Cecil, Georgia, for a set of races that are equal parts thrilling, brain-numbing and mystifying. Of those, Lights Out is by far the biggest.

Here, followers drink the world-record Kool-Aid. Each February, barrier-breaking bursts on the eighth-mile aren’t hoped for, they are expected. Lights Out goes so far as to schedule more qualifying rounds than necessary (when timing allows) to give racers the most chances possible of making headlines.

There’s fear of the outside: The traditional mode of going fast – the bias-ply slick tyre – is mocked, derided and excommunicated, its merits not even permitted to be discussed.

And then there’s the cult’s enigmatic leader, Florida’s Donald Long. He wasn’t the first to run radial-tyre races, but he was