Why Is It Called No Prep Racing?

It’s no secret that in the past few years, no prep racing has gone from something most of us had never even heard of to one of the more popular styles of drag racing in the country. It seems like just about every weekend, we hear about a new event or there’s one of the no prep series events taking place somewhere in the midwest or southeast. There are certainly no prep events outside those regions as well, but the bulk of the scene is centered in the Midwest and the southeastern US.

If you listen to the Chief and Shawn Show podcast regularly, you’ve probably heard their hysterical recollection of the “no prep” – quotation marks used for a very good reason – at the recent filming that took place there. For those who missed it, I’ll briefly recap, but you really, and I do mean REALLY, do need to listen to it. It’s one of the funniest episodes of the podcast yet, and we all know there are some hilarious episodes of that show. It’s Episode 48, titled “No Prep – Deal With Your Sh*t”

Basically, after giving the competitors a day on the track for testing – a concept that is all but foreign to no prep racing as a rule in the first place – the racers were in staging for the first round of completion when the staff began, for lack of a more accurate term, preparing the track. While any change to the track surface between testing and eliminations should serve the purpose of throwing the drivers a curveball, which seemed to be the actual purpose in my opinion, the way they went about it was absurd. Shawn and Chief talking about it on the show later, with their trademark sense of humor, makes for one hell of a story.

To help illustrate how the process should go, our good friend Duane, better known as the man behind Detroit HoodTV on YouTube, caught one of the more traditional no prep track preparation routines while he was out west for Outlaw Armageddon. Big Marc and the Thunder Valley Raceway Park staff have worked out a process of basically cleaning the track down to almost nothing, including getting rid of as much of the rubber as possible and spraying the track down with water before brushing it off and drying it. This makes for much more of a legitimate no prep surface compared to what the guys saw in Memphis. Check it out, and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DmMsyev_Tc&app=desktop