The off-season could best described by the New Crew as truthfully the “on-season” given the propensity of upgrades and improvements put into place over the past several weeks . In a pro-active move to further elevate and enhance the drag strip, it has been a beehive activity and work following the final event of the season in late-October.

A-1 Quality Concrete, earned the bid to handle the concrete finishing, which involved 220 tons of specially mixed concrete over a 430′ distance from behind the starting line and down track to now create a full concrete surface “wall to wall” to the 600′ mark. Three sections were completed, including both the left and right hand sides of the 60′ wide strip, along with the 15′ wide center section. Nearly three dozen experienced workers were involved with the entire project on behalf of seven companies under the watchful eye of project foreman John New.

Dedicated to further enhancing the Firebird facility, general manager Scott New conveyed, “My two brothers John and Brad, along with everyone in the New family are committed to providing racers and our fans a better place to race each and every season. As we countdown to our celebration of 50 years in 2017, we have been working overtime to create an enhanced facility for everyone to enjoy.”

The 2017 season schedule will be highlighted by the return of our oldest race, the 47th Annual NAPA Auto Parts Ignitor presented by Peterson Chevrolet, which is aligned with both the Lucas Oil Drag Race Series in Division 6 and the Heritage Series on May 5-7, 2017. The track’s signature event, the grand daddy 46th Annual Pepsi Nightfire Nationals will return August 10-13, 2017. For those of you making plans for the return of the NAPA Halloween Classic, dates for the 24 year old event are set for October 11-15, 2017.

A full compliment of events will be released in January, which includes a season chock full of races starting in early April and running thru October.