Dirt
Donald Long steps outside the
box for his latest race offering
By Ian Tocher
N
ever one to rest on his laurels,
drag radial racing promoter Donald
“Duck” Long announced in June he
is adding a third major event next
spring to his annual offerings at South Georgia
Motorsports Park (SGMP)—with a major twist.
“We’re going to put on a race for Radial vs. the
World cars only that’ll pay a winner-take-all
$101,000—and we’re going to limit attendance
to 500 spectators,” Long proudly declared. “Ob-
viously it’s a little different from everything else
because it’s not about making a ton of money.
We just want to spotlight Radial vs. the World
because there’ve been rumors about people
maybe wanting to sell their cars because there
just weren’t enough good races, so we’re trying to
bring another elite race to them. That’s the origi-
nal goal. So yeah, it is a little different, but if we
don’t try it we’ll never know if it can work or not.”
The event, Sweet 16, will be run March 23-
24, 2018 (with Sunday, Mar. 25 available as a
rain date), just weeks after Long’s now-legend-
ary Lights Out 9 wraps up at the track just a
few miles north of Valdosta, the southernmost
city in Georgia. No Mercy 8, the third event for
Duck X Productions, will go off early this October,
also at SGMP.
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“There’s no way money wise you could bring
back all the people from February, make them
spend a whole bunch more money, camping, tak-
ing vacation time, but the Radial vs. the World
guys, they’re a little different; they’re a little bit
more into the expensive stuff, the people that
have those cars tend to own their own businesses,
so it makes it a little easier for them to get away.
They have a little more flexibility,” Long explained.
“So I called about 10 or 12 people before go-
ing forward with this, including Stevie Jackson,
Barry Mitchell, DeWayne Mills, Ma