Midnight Drags at the 2017 Car Craft Summer Nationals marked the event’s first year at its new home, Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky. A 42-car field battled it out until Michael Goodman’s 1969 Nova came out on top with an 8.01-second pass at 163 mph. The night was successful enough that organizers brought the event back in 2018 with an expanded two-day format.
You missed a great show if you weren’t at Beech Bend Raceway Park on July 22, 2017. That’s when we hosted Midnight Drags at the Chevrolet Performance Car Craft Summer Nationals presented by Holley / MSD. A 42 car field battled it out for a position in our Quick 16, which was made up of cars ranging from the high 9’s to low 8’s in the quarter mile. Cars were eliminated by random pairings from there until Michael Goodman emerged victorious with a 8.01 at 163 mph pass in his 1969 Nova. Full Midnight Drags coverage can be found here, but don’t miss our gallery of expanded coverage from Saturday night’s race. Special thanks to Gear Vendors Under/Overdrive for sponsoring Midnight Drags and all the drag racing at the 2017 Car Craft Summer Nationals.
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Check the gallery: https://goo.gl/3MjYHe
Beech Bend Raceway Park had only just become the new home of the Car Craft Summer Nationals when Midnight Drags rolled through in July 2017, and nobody quite knew whether the venue swap would live up to the event’s reputation. It did, dramatically. A tightly packed field of quarter-mile racers dueled under the lights until only one car remained standing, and by the time the smoke cleared, it was not a purpose-built dragster that took the win but a well-sorted 1969 Nova. The event proved successful enough that Car Craft brought Midnight Drags back the very next year with an even bigger format. What changed between that first Beech Bend night and the sequel a year later?
A New Venue Proves Itself
2017 marked the first time Car Craft Summer Nationals set up at Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and the Midnight Drags portion of the event was effectively a test of whether the new location could deliver the kind of high-stakes, close-quarters racing fans expected. A 42-car field narrowed down through random eliminations until Michael Goodman’s 1969 Nova ran the table, and the strong turnout convinced organizers the venue was a keeper.
Doubling Down for 2018
Car Craft returned to Beech Bend for the 2018 Summer Nationals, its sophomore year at the track, and expanded Midnight Drags into a full two-day event split into Small Tire and Big Tire classes. Every car had to be American-powered and rear-wheel-drive on DOT-legal tires, keeping the spirit of grassroots street-style racing intact even as the event grew in scale. That expanded format has since become the template for Midnight Drags at Beech Bend, turning what began as a single test night in 2017 into one of the signature events on the Car Craft Summer Nationals calendar.
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