FASTEST STREET CAR IN AMERICA
eBay Motors Powers HOT ROD Drag Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive.
Looking at the map, the 2021 HOT ROD Drag Week route looked a lot like the Bermuda triangle. The staging and starting point was U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan, followed by a shot over to Summit Motorsports Park, in Norwalk, Ohio, then down to Lucas Oil Raceway, in Indianapolis, and back up to Byron Dragway in Byron, Illinois. A sane person on the freeway could make the trip in about 12 hours and cover about 800 miles if they didn’t disappear into a triangle myth forever.
There is nothing sane about Drag Week contenders. Instead of the direct route, they all volunteered to drive their race cars along four circuitous routes that added up to 1,200 miles total—each hidden from them until the day of the drive. Those new to Drag Week or drag racing in general need to understand these are hot, noisy, home-made vintage vehicles with about five times the power of the average street commuter. It’s an exercise in physical and mental endurance.
To win Drag Week overall, you must have a fast car. That may be a giant oversimplification considering last year’s winner, Tom Bailey’s Camaro, covered the quarter-mile in 5.99 seconds at 250 mph. To add a little perspective, the average drivable street rod or muscle car would be about 10 seconds slower, a lifetime in motorsports of any kind. Bailey couldn’t make the call for 2021 allowing long-time Drag Week competitor Dave Schroeder to step in with his new Corvette and win the overall event with a 6.73 at 198 mph average.
DAVE SCHROEDER’S 2019 CORVETTE
Dave Schroeder and his cousin John Ens have been racing on Drag Week since 2010. The first car was a red and white 1955 Chevy that ran 8.90s at more than 150 mph in the Modified Power Adder class. In 2012, Schroeder debuted a 1966 Chevy Corvette with a nitrous-assisted 872-inch Reher Morrison engine. Schroeder and Ens took some losses, DNFs, and even a crash before winning the Unlimited Class in 2017. The next year, Tom Bailey appeared with a Camaro and put them on the trailer in 2018 and 2019 while running the first 5-second pass in Drag Week history.
