PHOTOGRAPHS BY VAN ABERNETHY

From Friday test-and-tune to highdollar bracket races and the Mopar Muscle Dragfest, London Dragway keeps its calendar full

By Van Abernethy

“ Most everything we do here is contested on the eighth mile, but yeah, we’ ve got the quartermile clocks turned on during our Friday night test-and-tune program,” says Kentucky native Craig Boone, who along with wife, Tammy, have owned London Dragway for nearly two decades.

The buzz of excitement here at London came early in the year when it was announced that the IHRA Bracket Finals would be returning to Memphis, as the anticipated reopening of the former Memphis International Raceway is slated for late 2026.“ Our racers loved competing at Memphis, so we were all happy to hear the Bracket Finals are returning there in October,” Boone says.

London Dragway has a total of 19 IHRA Summit

bracket races on the schedule this year, of which 12 of them may be counted for a chance to compete in Memphis for the prestigious event.“ We also have a completely separate track points program that we do pretty much every weekend, so we’ ve got roughly 20 of those on the schedule.”

The first three-day weekend of 2026 was held April 10-12, with the running of the Kentucky Spring Showdown, and the weather was nearly perfect for this event. Also on the schedule for April was the Budget Bracketfest, Footbrake Friday

, and No Box Throwdown.

The month of May ushered in another threeday weekend of bracket racing with the return of the Bluegrass Stakes. Race fans got their first taste of heads-up racing on May 9, with the return of Outlaw Pro Mods, along with a huge field of 4.70 entries, as well as Quick 32 and a track points bracket race.“ It’ s a whole lot of racing packed into a single Saturday!” says Boone. This same combo of classes is scheduled once per month all the way to October. The Memorial Day Classic is

May / June 2026

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