Piedmont Dragway, which opened in 1957, has long enjoyed the IHRA’s programs like the Summit SuperSeries, the most prestigious national championship in bracket racing. The program fits in perfectly with the track’s focus on its grassroots racers.
Robert Richardson (Box), Tucker Creech (No Box) and Gavin Whisnant (Junior) were IHRA Summit SuperSeries champions at Piedmont in 2022.
In addition, Piedmont Dragway was the site of the season-opening IHRA Sportsman Spectacular presented by Hagerty and Moser Engineering back in April.
Matt Sayers repeated as No Box winner on Sunday at the two-day event, while Scott Macy won the Saturday race. The pair of Box winners were Jonathan McCandless and Bubba Paschal. Alyssa Tilghman and Whisnant took home Junior Dragster victories.
“Everything has worked well with IHRA. We’ve been with IHRA a long time and we hope to stay with them a long time,” track operator Jesse Senecal said.
The recent addition of a Motorcycle class to the IHRA programs was also good news for Piedmont. The area is a hotbed for two-wheel drag racers and Piedmont is one track which has embraced the bikes.
“We do a lot with the motorcycles,” Senecal said. “Some tracks treat motorcycles as outcasts, but we’ve worked with the Carolina No Time and there are a lot of motorcycle followers here. This new class is going to help everybody.”
Even more than its outstanding bracket racing, Piedmont Dragway is known as the “Doorslammer Capital of the World” with its “Big Dog Shootout” races. In its 27th year, it’s one of the longest running series going.
“It’s an eight-car field, $5,000-to-win and there are a lot of great people involved,” Senecal explained. “Todd Tutterow, Ty Tutterow, Barry Mitchell, Brian Shrader, Robert Hayes, Bob Harris, Jason Harris are some of the great racers. We’ve had a lot of great people who have run it for a long time. We try to make it better every year.”
It’s quite a challenge to make it better as Wes Buck from Drag Illustrated has called it, “the best one-day, one-track event in the country.”
For Senecal, his focus is always on the racers and giving them the best experience possible. Located on 110 acres, there are restroom facilities on both sides of the track. It has a RV dump site, while the track itself features an 1/8-mile drag strip with 2,000 feet of shutdown.
Ultimately, the secret to Piedmont’s success is the people.
“We are a small crew, but we work very hard,” Senecal said. “There are a lot of other tracks around, but I have the best crew. I have the best computer operator, Leon Graves, doing the track. I thank God for my crew.”
For more about this longtime IHRA-member track, click here to check out the Piedmont Dragway website.
