PHOTOGRAPHS BY VAN ABERNETHY |
Brainerd Motorsports Park is a beloved facility that’ s rich in history, and has operated in multiple states as the track is approaching seven decades of operation. The original locale of this dragstrip was in Hixson, Tennessee, and dates back to the late 1950s. Sometime around the early-to-mid-1960s the track moved to Ringgold, Georgia, which is roughly a half-hour south of Hixson, where it remains in operation to this present day. No surprise, this track operated as a quartermile facility until roughly the mid-1970s, when
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performance levels begin to exceed stopping distance, so the decision was made to shorten the track to an eighth mile.
Track owners Steven and Amy Farrow have had a long history with the track, and they even met because of a mutual love of the sport.“ I drove a 1968 Camaro in high school, and even though I wasn’ t supposed to bring it to the track, I wound up coming here anyway,” Steven laughs. His dad used to help a local race team and Steven would sometimes come to watch, and eventually he too started helping the team. By the time he was a senior in high school, he was racing a center-steer
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Brainerd Motorsports Park owners Steven and Amy Farrow.
1923 roadster on a regular basis.
Eventually, Steven became interested in leasing the track to hold his own events, before eventually leasing it fulltime in 2016. When 2021 rolled around, the opportunity came for Steven and Amy to buy the track, so that’ s exactly what they did.
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July / August 2025 |
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