History Of No Prep
HISTORY OF HOW WE GOT HERE WITH NO PREP DRAG RACING
The 2025 season sees the return of Drag Racing to Manston Airport. Back in the early 1980’s there were a few events held at Manston, 1/8th mile, I believe it was part of the Street Racer Championship, but don't quote me. It was mainly, if not exclusively, door cars and surprisingly, quite a few of the racers who will be returning to Manston Raceway Park competed back then.
No PREP drag racing is really and simply the purest form of drag racing. Just like racing on the streets was many years ago, no sticky, groomed racetrack. You just dealt with the available traction, using skill and judgement to navigate your way from a standing start, the best you can. So the faster reacting, better set up and most efficient driver and car combo could have a chance at beating a car that on paper would win every time. Which is why we don't race on paper. One winner, one loser, every time. That is the magic or No Prep 1/8th mile drag racing.
Why 1/8th mile?
Well its a number of reasons.
1 Safety, 1/8th mile involves less speed than ¼ mile, also aerodynamics don't usually come into play until the driver reaches the 1/8th, then between the 1/8th and ¼ it can become a big factor. Cars can be pretty quick nowadays, a lot faster than when we raced at Screaming Ally Dragstrip, Manston as it was then called in the 1980’s. Back then a fast car ran 11 seconds at Santa Pod on a ¼ mile. Most quick cars were more the 13-15 seconds range on the ¼ mile.
2 A quick reacting driver can steal a real advantage off of the start line, on an 1/8th mile race, that alone can be enough to win a race. But on a ¼ mile distance, there is a lot more room for a faster car to correct that mistake and reel the slower car in.
3 Traction off of the line and down track. A well hooked up low buck 300 HP car can easily beat a 500+ hp car that cost 3 times as much if he is hooked up for part if not all of his pass.
Drag racing always has been about making as few mistakes as possible, doing your job as best you can with your car tuning and drivers skill. If you do the best you can and still lose, well. You still have the satisfaction of knowing that you left nothing on the table and made him earn it. You can never win them all, but if you have a competitive car and do your job right and other people make mistakes, well then it might just be your day.
SO HOW DID WE GET STARTED?
I will keep this brief. I have been attending events at Dragstrips in the states for about 25 years now and the Illegal street racing scene in the States has been alive and well forever. Even here in Essex when I was a kid, illegal street racing happened at spots dotted around the country, our local spot was Tollgate Road in Docklands East London.
The doorslammer racing scene in the States has been highlighted by TV shows like PINKS, which evolved into, STREET OUTLAWS, which has had probably at least half a dozen spin off shows. What this also did was dramatically increase the amount of illegal street race activity happening in the states as well, as a knock on effect. Add to that the turbocharging, Procharged combos, where you can literally buy a Chevy LS Smallblock for $600 bucks, add a cheap Chinese turbo kit and some decent Holley or FAST ECU control system with methanol injectors or just a blow thru carb and you have 1000-1200 hp. All this for initially for under $10,000 and if you blew the motor, you just went down the junkyard and pulled another $600 buck cutout. You put that combo in a Foxbody Mustang like Nathan Hulkes has recently done and you have a serious race car. (Before you ask, Nathans car cost him a lot more than $10K) But back in the day, it could be done, or a SBF with a 2oo shot of Nitrous, you could win races with that.
This explosion of fast illegal street racing has got a lot of attention from the law enforcement in the states. So slowly over the past few years, it has become a thing to use drag strips, in the shutdown area where there is no track prep, and or Airstrips, which is a lot safer, you don't get chased by the cops all nite, you don't get arrested and thrown in jail or have the car confiscated. Also the car counts have increased even more, so has the technology in these cars. Fire, Track Staff and Paramedics can also be present.
Literally any car can race, homebuilt up to state of the art race cars, 10k to 400k budgets. The scene has evolved fast and now has a number of classes, mainly Heads Up, always 1/8th mile.
There has always been big money in prizemoney, for the real successful teams, its nearly back to the 1960’s, when racers could earn a living out of just racing.
We started our NO Prep Racing hare at North Weald Airport at the RWYB events hosted by Tony Huck and the Maitland Racing organisation. It was 2016 and we ran a 16 car field, the entry filled in 10 days, six months before the date. The event was a great day, with once again the two cars in the Final, Dave Wiggins SBC NOVA on gas and Chris Skinner’s Taz racing FIAT 126 SBC n/a. Both drivers will tell you they were not the fastest in the field, but made it to the money round. Unfortunately Epping Forrest District Council did not permit any more RWYB events in 2017 so we were homeless.
From this we then hosted two events at Rockingham Motor Speedway in 2018. The facility was fantastic and we held the races on the Pit road, the two events at Rockingham Motor Speedway really put No Prep on the map. Unfortunately Rockingham closed its doors that year and once again we were homeless.
The following years saw us race at various venues thruout the country really, with different organisers. East Kirkby, Sywell Aerodrome, Melbourne Raceway, Elvington, Lydden Hill, Jurby IOM to name a few, but for various reasons none of them were what we needed. Although we are grateful for the opportunities they all provided in hosting us.
It was not until 2025 and where we are now at Manston Raceway Park, Manston Airport, Ramsgate Kent, that we can once again offer genuine grass roots heads up racing once again. We have no idea how long this will last, other than we are here for the 2025 season. So make the most of it while we can.