(Words and Photos by Benoit Pigeon) Since 1996, the Big Dog Shootout (known as Big Dog) has been the place to go to watch pro modified
racing on a regular basis in northern North Carolina. Open in the late 50’s as a divided lanes dragstrip, Piedmont Dragway is your typical 1/8th mile track for the region. Performances of race cars back then were much slower and little tracks made economical sense to the local and regional markets. But as performances grew the little tracks that may have run 1/4 mile racing with short shutdown distance found themselves limited to shorter racing distance and became less attractive for big events, especially with nitro classes. Nevertheless, with one of the largest concentrations of race tracks only
behind the state of Texas, racing kept going in NC and neighboring states, thanks to large count of local racers. But even regional racing will eventually grow.
While big national events kept being added and getting bigger, so did this less well known regional racing activity. Eventually tracks found ways to
grow classes via the IHRA and connect formal and less formal series anywhere from Texas to the entire East Coast. That’s how Top Sportsman became a big thing back in the late 80’s thanks in part to the introduction of nitrous on door and rail cars. Eventually all this activity gave birth to pro modified
and less than ten years later, the first Big Dog was introduced. Piedmont, the track that hosts these events, has all the particularities of that 80’s early TS racing on a short track but host big modern racing power. In fact as of late, the 6 race series has adopted the NHRA pro mod rules with some
revisiting and adaptations.
The first racer to win the event was Maurice Harris who happens to be the uncle of Travis Harvey, winner of this 2023 series. Travis is a local racer but on a regular Big Dog, competitors have come from many states as well. Big Dog has a few particularities. One of them is its
trophy, a heavy statuette representing a mean bulldog. The track itself is very well prepared and rarely gets any type of service during the event. The surface is super sticky and cars reach the high 3.70’s. There are two qualifications with the first one scheduled for 5:00pm. Then cars have to show up when
called every 45 minutes or so, first for Q2 and then the race.
There is little time for major repairs and the show keeps going until around 11:00pm. Teams make up with extra helper if possible. This year, an additional race was added in October to finalize the season. While the track is small, Big Dog is no little secret. Racers who come to this series do so knowing that competition is top level and regional racers are well trained to endure the short time the Thursday event require. And now that the rules have been updated, more cars than ever have the potential to enter any of the six standard race schedule.
Thanks to track manager Rick Moore, the series is well alive and in good hands. Moore, an ex-pro mod and Big Dog racer himself has promotional experience having managed a regional series named EOPM. He also was lead racing operation tech for ADRL in the past. Big Dog today has all the
conditions for many more years of fierce racing. Ten years ago I was shooting photos following a team at a Big Dog race for a magazine. The publication titled the article “Big Dog Still Has Bite!”. It’s impressive to see that this is still valid today after 27 years of existence. Very few small series at this
level have survived this many years and this one track only series most likely the single one to achieve this milestone.
If you have ever been to a Big Dog, feel free to share a line, or memories below in the comments.
The post Big Dog Pro Mod Shootout Photo Coverage: This Epic Battle Continued In 2023 And Did Not Disappoint! We’ve Got The Photos To Prove It! appeared first on BangShift.com.
Commercials Cooperation Advertisements:
(1) IT Teacher IT Freelance
立刻註冊及報名電腦補習課程吧!
电子计算机 -教育 -IT 電腦班” ( IT電腦補習 ) 提供一個方便的电子计算机 教育平台, 為大家配對信息技术, 電腦 老師, IT freelance 和 programming expert. 讓大家方便地就能找到合適的電腦補習, 電腦班, 家教, 私人老師.
We are a education and information platform which you can find a IT private tutorial teacher or freelance.
Also we provide different information about information technology, Computer, programming, mobile, Android, apple, game, movie, anime, animation…
(2) ITSec
www.ITSeceu.uk
Secure Your Computers from Cyber Threats and mitigate risks with professional services to defend Hackers.
ITSec provide IT Security and Compliance Services, including IT Compliance Services, Risk Assessment, IT Audit, Security Assessment and Audit, ISO 27001 Consulting and Certification, GDPR Compliance Services, Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), Penetration test, Ethical Hacking, Vulnerabilities scan, IT Consulting, Data Privacy Consulting, Data Protection Services, Information Security Consulting, Cyber Security Consulting, Network Security Audit, Security Awareness Training.
Contact us right away.
Email (Prefer using email to contact us):
SalesExecutive@ITSec.vip