The Good, Bad, And Ugly Of Globe-trekking Drag Week Competitors

The International Drag Weekers Sure Looked Like They Had the Most Fun.

- Thom Taylor

​HOT ROD’s reach and Drag Week’s popularity resulted in the biggest increase in participation from those outside of our shores for 2016. Going through the sometimes reams of Customs paperwork, plunking down some serious money beyond the cost of your race car for international insurance, the cost to ship it off, all of the logistical maneuvering stateside, taking time away from work and family, and traveling to the U.S. before a single throttle is squeezed or burnout launched is kinda crazy. We understand, but we don’t. So we asked some of the more than 20 international Drag Weekers what it is about Drag Week™ madness intoxicating racing fans beyond our borders.

Ross Gault from Australia, with his 1969 Camaro, says Drag Week™ is something every drag-racing fan in Australia wants to do. PJ Nadeau says, “Something about cars that shouldn’t be doing what they are doing, doing what they do, that just got to me.” Having done both the Power Tour® and now Drag Week™, Michael Lis from just across the New York border in Rockland, Canada, is lucky because he has no ocean to cross. Comparing the two events, he says, “It’s Power Tour with a purpose.” He told us it wasn’t cheap, “But it was more cost effective than Disney World—and the rides are faster.”

Jimmy Klaavuniemi from the southeastern coast of Sweden said he was so excited about doing Drag Week™ he started planning and preparing a year in advance—and was glad he did. This wasn’t his first foray into international road-tripping; in 2014, he drove more than 2,600 miles in his 1966 Bel Air from Stockholm to Budapest. The takeaway? Definitely plan ahead.