Generally clear. Low 66F. Winds light and variable..
Generally clear. Low 66F. Winds light and variable.
Claude Wright starts the Arm Drop Drag Race at Boyd County Fair Thursday.
Side by side machines run neck and neck at the Boyd County Fair.
Claude Wright starts the Arm Drop Drag Race at Boyd County Fair Thursday.
Side by side machines run neck and neck at the Boyd County Fair.
COALTON Fans of drag racing and off-road machines were treated to both on Thursday night at the Boyd County Fair.
Claude Wright, of the Rush Riders Group, held the first race at last year’s fair, and it proved so popular that he wanted to bring it back again.
“We’re drag racing side-by-sides,” Wright explained the event, which was called “Arm Drop Drag Racing.” “This is kind of grass roots. We don’t use a light tree and keep it as simple as possible.”
Wright said the event is a lot like the show “Street Outlaws,” only with dirt tracks.
“We are trying to give these riders something else to do with their machines other than just be able to get them out once or twice a month in the woods,” Wright said. The group plans races all over the area whenever possible for just that reason, which allows them to enjoy their machines more frequently.
It is common for the side by side riders to have invested tens of thousands of dollars in their machines, and running them is the true payoff, Wright said.
“That’s why we are always looking for something else to do with them whether it be drag racing, the rally-style racing out in Grayson, or at the Big Sandy Raceway,” Wright said.
The event is growing, Wright said, because the interest is there, and people have begun to take notice. Last year’s event at the Boyd County Fair was smaller with only eight riders competing.
After that success, however, the fair itself put aside some money for the purse this year, and other sponsors such as Sargent’s Wholesale Tires, Riders Ranch Campground, and Clark’s Pump-n-Shop helped raise the amount of that purse as well as draw in both more competitors and more spectators.
“We have people here from two or three hours away,” Wright said. “They’ve come from central Ohio, and western and southern Kentucky.”
The Rush Riders Group Facebook page has grown to more than 15,000 followers he said, and they regularly advertise what they will be doing next there.
Wright said a lot of their followers are from different states, such as those in central Ohio, in areas where they don’t have big areas to ride their side by sides.
Wright said the Thursday event doubled as a show for the fair, with many people who weren’t riders showing up as well to see the machines tear down a 27-foot wide, 300-foot-long straight dirt track at top speed.
Riders competed in one of three classes based on the horsepower of the machine, Wright said. Categories were up to 120 hp, up to 170 hp and a 200-plus hp class. Winners in those classes won $500 each, last man standing, Wright said. Then the losers ran again to compete for a $200 purse.
Local man Todd Brown has a history with machines and is a huge fan of anything with wheels and a motor. Brown, who raced in the Thursday event, said that he has been into running the side by sides for about six years now and enjoys it immensely.
“I haven’t won a lot, but I have broke a lot,” Brown said, laughing about the inevitable expense of tearing full tilt over every terrain possible and saying (from personal knowledge) that axles start at $250. But that doesn’t stop Brown — or any other fan of machines designed to chew dirt — from have a blast.
“It’s just fun,” Brown said. “There’s nothing else like it.”
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