“This will include 32 Funny Cars, Pro Mods, Jet Cars, injected cars and even a handful of juniors,” track owner Robert Costa said.

While that event brings plenty of fun for spectators, Albuquerque Dragway’s move back to IHRA has proven to be a boost for its grassroots, Sportsman racers. Costa explained how the IHRA Summit SuperSeries program, the most prestigious national championship in bracket racing with payouts and prizes worth over $275,000, have excited the weekly racers.

“It’s been good to be back with IHRA,” Costa said. “Participation has been up and some of that has to do with the IHRA Summit SuperSeries program. There are quite a few competitors hopeful that they get to go to Mississippi.”

They’re also working on a squad to go to the IHRA Division 4 (Renegades) Summit Team Finals Sept. 21-23 at Xtreme Raceway Park in Texas.

Albuquerque features some unique challenges with a mile-high elevation, and big fluctuations with the density altitude. There is also history of stars racing at the New Mexico track. While Albuquerque is famous as home of the Unser family, winners of nine Indianapolis 500 trophies, there’s also a rich history with drag racing.

“The Gray family is from southern New Mexico, but we’ve also had some super class racers like Michael Miller who have been pretty substantial,” Costa said. “Back in the 70s, they used to do a lot of match racing here. In fact, the 1973 and ’74 World Finals were here. That brought in a lot of the big names like (Don “The Snake”) Prudhomme and (“Big Daddy” Don) Garlits.” 

There are more great events throughout the rest of the 2023 season including an IHRA Ironman Classic scheduled for August 12 and the Labor Day Bash on Sept. 1-2. For more information on these and other great Albuquerque Dragway events, click here to check out the track’s Facebook page.