The Doorslammers: Big Prize Money – Street-Style ‘Tin-Top’ Racing
The Doorslammers
Santa Pod Raceway
Fri.19 – Sun.21 May 2023
Since its return in 2018, The Doorslammers has established itself as a firm favourite on the calendar for drag racing fans and racers alike, and with £90,000 on the line – it’s no surprise. The prize money is scattered throughout a variety of race classes, headlined by the VP Racing Fuels Pro Doorslammer class. Apart from the requirement for doors and the safety stuff, the rules are – there are no rules. Pro Doorslammer is where the big boys and girls go to prove who is the fastest – period. No limitations on body styles, no restrictions on engines, tyres or power adders – do whatever it takes to get to the finish line first. We’ve seen many an upset throughout eliminations but as of yet, we haven’t had a repeat Pro Doorslammer winner nor have we had a British winner – maybe it’s time for a homegrown entry to hang onto the crown.
Owing to the nature of the class structure, The Doorslammers is one of those events where you can see cars you wouldn’t normally find at a traditional championship race event and this year is no exception. After a couple of years with a limited number of overseas racers, it seems that they’ve figured out how to navigate their way around again post Brexit. Early versions of the entry list are dominated with cars from across Europe. In particular, we have a very welcome invasion from Poland with 17 cars entered at present throughout all the heads-up classes including a couple of Pro Doorslammer entries with a tasty Toyota Celica and a Turbo Powered Pontiac Firebird. They should really set the cat among the pigeons!
True Street features an impressive 1,000BHP Lamborghini Huracan Performante from Germany of Stephen Klasen that arrives with 8-second credentials. With no chassis mods allowed and strict tyre rules, a high-powered supercar is always going to be tough to beat but as we’ve seen many times before – anything can happen on the strip!
With slightly more relaxed rules, Pro Street is where the Street Eliminator racers from past and present come to play and they’ve got some quick and interesting Polish entries joining them this year
The Williams Bros Speed Shop are welcomed back as sponsors of the Big Bracket class – a class that Nic Williams himself has won in 2019. As always, the two days of independent competitions are shaping up to be a battle royal of bracket racers. Previous winners Lee Chiles and Lee Huxley both have early entries in along with racers from Germany and Switzerland. Don’t forget there’s £10K on the line EACH DAY in the Big Bracket. Prize money of that calibre is almost unheard of in Europe!
The 6-Cylinder class always produces a gem or two and the first couple of entries are certainly gems. Austrian entrant Hubert Strengberger is signed up with his insane Audi TT; the current AWD Audi world record holder has recently run a best of 7.1sec so that 6-second pass is just a whisker away. The other entry in the class of Mario Kapeller in the AWD Audi A3 is Hubert’s teammate so comes with an equal level of pedigree and from what we’ve seen of it before, it’s always an entertaining watch.
4-Cylinder is always a hugely popular class and again boasts some extremely exciting entries. There’s the usual mix of Fords, VWs and Japanese compact entries with 7-second passes being the benchmark in performance. The beauty of the class is that any 4-cylinder combination capable of running 7 seconds is at absolute peak performance and therefore reliability and consistency becomes a real factor on track. Dane Jack Krugel comes into the event as an unknown to Santa Pod but research suggests he’ll be somewhere near the front of the field with his AWD Nissan Pulsar along with Austrian entrant Johannes Haginger in his AWD VW Golf.
With elimination pairings being drawn out of a hat and a shedload of money on the line anything could happen – and probably will. Join us as the action unfolds over the weekend of the 19th-21st May.
Visit www.thedoorslammers.co.uk to find out more.
