Not sure that I ever thought I would be saying this, especially in a public forum, but what the hell have I been missing when it comes to no prep racing?

For years I have had a bad taste in my mouth regarding no prep racing. Thinking that it was foolish, childish, unimportant, and just about every other negative adjective that you could think of to describe that slice of pie in our sport. Well, I have been proven wrong regarding that, at least in certain aspects.

Over the last year or so I have had many people tell me that I must give no prep racing a chance. I was told that it would be fun and that I would actually enjoy it. I kinda laughed to myself when that was said to me. As someone that has been involved in class racing for over thirty years, and a full-time photographer of class racing for almost 9 years, I thought to myself that there is no way I am going to enjoy this at all. Yeah, I used to street race, but going to a no prep event at a racetrack, how could this really be worth my time?

I have gone to a couple of backside events locally in Tennessee over the last year or two and while they were ok, it wasn’t really my thing. Then last year my friend Andrew Wolf over at Dragzine went to this event called War in the Woods in Indiana. When he got back, he messaged me and told me that I must go to this event at least once to check it out. The craziness that he described from a journalist and photographer point of view was something that piqued my interest.

With all that said, I’m not new to the happenings in the no prep world. I do follow along with some things over there and I have friends that race in the no prep world as well. I just never understood the attraction of going to event and not utilizing the technology that we have to create a great surface and go as fast as you can. We have glue and ways to make a track stick, yet you want to go out there and play adult slip and slide in a car that weighs thousands of pounds and makes gobs of horsepower…seemed idiotic.

The time finally came to me to suck it up and make the decision to give a real no prep event a chance though. I had made the decision on the advice of Andrew, as well as no prep photographer extraordinaire Courtney Paulshock, to attend the fall version of War in the Woods. Before doing so I popped over to Youtube and checked out some videos of War in the Woods previous editions and my mind felt scrambled. I was watching this insanity and thinking to myself, what the hell am I getting myself into?

Brown County Dragway is the scene for this melee, and those from the Midwest know how sketchy the weather can get in the Midwest any time after Labor Day. With the help of great yearly branding partners like Larry Jeffers Race Cars, Menscer Motorsports, Garrett Turbo, Classic Graphix, Extreme Race Oil, and event coverage partners Nitrous Outlet & Stroud Safety, it was in the cards for me to experience something I will never forget.

For a little reference though, I’m used to covering radial, pro mod, grudge, and events of that nature where the track prep is of the utmost concern. That means a lot of watching the tractor and sprayer going up and down the track and giving me a headache. The walls are usually concrete, and the rules are much different for media at class racing or grudge racing events than they were for this event.

Six hours or so is what it takes me to drive up to Brown County Dragway, so a short drive. I headed up there Friday early morning to make sure I wasn’t going to be either waiting in line forever or end up parked so far away I was exhausted by the time I lug my shit to the starting line. Rolled in about 11 am on Friday and the first thing I noticed was how I was literally in the middle of absolutely nowhere. When I pulled in the gate staff was amazing. They were polite and very helpful. Entirely too many events that I go to the gate staff acts like you being there is an inconvenience to them. This was certainly not the case at this event. They handed me my credentials and let me know where I should park.

As I turned down the dirt road there were people out there taking care of getting people parked in an orderly manner, again, everyone had a smile on their face as well. I park the Yukon, now I will tell you, my intention was to sleep in the Yukon all weekend as the hotels aren’t all that close and they were expensive. So, once I was parked, chances are I’d only be leaving once more during the weekend to get any supplies I need.

Started getting my gear out of the car and immediately ran into another photographer from Minnesota that was there. He arrived on Thursday I believe and was staying at the campground next door. Got to talking for a while and then it happened…we walked from our parking spots, over the berm of grass and I saw it with my own eyes for the first time. It was the track with the grass that I had seen on Youtube. Not some big fancy well-lit area with wide grooves and concrete walls. This was about as old school as you could get. I certainly was second guessing my decision at this point.

Headed down the hill into the pit area and actually ran into some people that I know. As a photographer, especially one that no one really knows in the part of the world of drag racing, it’s always nice to run into people that you know so that you don’t feel like you are on an island all alone.

They announced that the drivers meeting was going to be at 4 and racing to start at 5. I headed over to the drivers meeting and soaked up some of that while taking a couple of photos. It was announced that there were 58 or so small tire cars, 35 hard tire cars, and 7 big tire cars. Apparently, this is happening at a lot of events, the big tire cars just don’t come out and play anymore. None-the-less, I was excited to see what these cars were like and how they’d perform on this stage.

I’m not going to go over every pass or details like that, because I was too damn busy soaking it all in. After the meeting I went out track side and determined where I was going to set up shop for Friday night. I took a position about 20 feet past where Bob Rice from NoPrep Felons was stationed and thought that could be a good spot. There certainly isn’t a ton of room between the guardrail and the spectator fence.

When I’m at work I’m usually a huge extrovert. It makes downtime easier to pass by when there are people along the fence to chat with, especially when there aren’t a ton of photographers climbing all over each other to get shots. So, this area was great for me to be able to interact with fans while waiting on the next class or next pair.

There is this preconceived notion in other areas of drag racing that the fans of no prep are somewhat, how shall I say it, less classy than that of class racing. Y’all need to lose that notion really quick! These were some well educated fans! Not only in their knowledge of the cars, drivers, performance, etc. but in real life educated. Certainly not some country bumpkin ass bullshit that a lot of us outside of no prep are led to believe. I made friends with all the folks around me on the spectator fence and had some of the best laughs I have had in years.

You want to talk about getting your heart racing though, stand next to a guardrail that comes up to my knees and take photos of these cars with the thoughts that the guardrail isn’t gonna do shit if something were to go wrong. Friday night I encountered a couple of close calls, and the same with Saturday night. The problem with that is that I am so used to a concrete wall to protect me that I found myself not moving on the close calls against the guardrail either.

Side by side racing…that’s the shit that I love, and this event provided a ton of that action. I saw cars ride the guardrail, cars tearing up the grass in-between the two lanes, car did a 360 at the top end, and everyone walked away happy and healthy after Friday night. Saturday was just a sleep away and it was announced that the racing action would start at 5 pm on Saturday just like it did on Friday. That left me to figure out what the hell I was going to do all day Saturday.

I already knew where I was going to set up to shoot on Saturday, since the great people that I encountered Friday night wanted me to come back and hang out with them on Saturday night again. How was I going to say no to that? They were super nice, we all laughed together, they fed me and gave me soda the entire weekend. These people had only met me Friday night and they already felt like family to me.

Most of the day Saturday was spent either taking a nap, or wandering around and talking to people I knew before coming to the event. Once the drivers meeting wrapped up, I knew that it was going to be time to work. They had second chance racing for hard tire and small tire, so there was going to be plenty of on track excitement to capture. The racing did not disappoint either. All night cars running down the track, none of the watching track draggers every dozen passes. If someone got into the grass and put grass on the surface, they’d go blow the grass off the track like you’d do to your driveway after mowing, and they’d get right back to it.

Limpy, who I had heard about numerous times as being one of the most well-respected starters in the no prep world was the one on the light all weekend. From what I could see he handled everything as professionally as any NHRA national event starter I’ve ever seen. He had control of his starting line and would shut shit down immediately if he needed to. Huge shoutout to him and the way that he carried himself and controlled his starting line.

By the end of Saturday night, they had crowned their winners, no one got hurt, the fans had a great time, and I made a ton of new friends! I’m not going to say that all no prep racing is this cool or that I am all of a sudden going to stop covering pro mod and radial to just do no prep, but you can bet your ass if I have the chance to be back at Brown County Dragway for War in the Woods in 2024 you will see me there again! I had a blast and I feel like I have really been missing out on some awesome shit!

Thank you to the entire event staff, Brown County Dragway, my branding partners, and my new friends like Gage, Dave, Scott, and others that made the weekend a blast and really opened my eyes to a new experience, all while making me eat a little crow when it came to my mindset regarding no prep racing!! I’m even more hyped now about the huge no prep event that Brainerd Motorsports Park is holding in November.