MSA British Drag Racing Championship

UK Drag Racing entered a new era in 2007 with the news that spectacular Pro Modifieds would contest the Motor Sports Association’s British Drag Racing Championship. As the 2008 season looms, predictions that the Championship spotlight would attract new entries into this ferociously fast doorslammer class have begun to bear fruit.

In 2007, the MSA Championship expanded from three to five rounds, including the two FIA European Championship events at Santa Pod Raceway. As a result, no fewer than 26 entries scored MSA Championship points during the season, with seven UK-based teams prominent among them. This season will see nine homegrown entries coming to the line, with more waiting in the wings.

The Berkshire veteran, Gordon Appleton, has retired from the scene and will be much missed but three fresh entries will now take up the challenge. Graham Ellis, Roger Moore and Wayne Nicholson are all accomplished Sportsman racers and will be welcomed into the MSA Championship ranks alongside current Pro Mod stars Andy Robinson (the reigning MSA British champion), Philip “Bert” Englefield, Ian Bishop, Danny Cockerill, Kevin Slyfield and Ray White.

The series' burgeoning profile has already encouraged significant press and television coverage and the MSA and the promotional team will continue building marketing and support arrangements in the future. Specialist TV programming of the full season is part of the plan and will enhance sponsorship prospects for the championship itself and for the participating race teams.

While all the 2007 and 2008 rounds will have taken place at Santa Pod Raceway, a multi-year development plan foresees other venues hosting rounds as the series grows and prospers.

Despite their official championship status, Pro Mods still possess an outlaw aura, evoking the spirit of drag racing's earliest days, before defined classes had evolved, when you would "run what ya brung" and hope you had "brung" enough. The class emerged in America in the 1980s as an adventurous reaction to the sport's formalised structure, pairing classic sedan body styles with enormous engines in combinations unfettered by too many rules.

Today's Pro Mods come in a vivid array of bodyshells, everything from 1938 Ford Coupes to late-model Corvettes. These bodyshells cloak pure-bred racing chassis built around giant V8 engines, some running on petrol and nitrous oxide, others on supercharged methanol, and all packing the punch to blast through the quarter-mile in six and a half seconds at over 200mph. They are, without doubt, the most extrovert machines ever to compete for an MSA Championship.

Valuable new interest was sparked this January when thousands of motorsport enthusiasts experienced Andy Robinson’s deafening, rafter-rattling burnouts inside Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, one of the hits of the Live Action Arena shows at Autosport-International.

Early in 2007, Keith Bartlett, promoter of the FIA European Drag Racing Championship and Trakbak’s CEO, had stated, "There are about 38 Pro Mod teams in Europe and I would expect at least 20 at Santa Pod for the European rounds.” This prediction proved correct: as mentioned, 26 racers scored MSA points during the season and those two events which combined MSA and FIA rounds were the undoubted highlights.

Along with their appearances at the Easter Thunderball and FIA European events, the MSA Championship Pro Mods will be the highlight attraction at Santa Pod's two national events in June and late September.

Trakbak Racing Ltd. promotes the MSA British Drag Racing Championship and all rights to the series are owned by Trakbak’s CEO, Keith Bartlett. The Championship Coordinator is Kjell Pettersson.

View dates and details of all championship rounds on the Rounds & Points page.