Southern Team Bracket Finals saved by Southern Tracks

Bracket racers across the United States were left hanging when the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) quickly shut down its operations early this summer. Working towards their Bracket Finals throughout the spring, summer months, many figured they’d have no way to crown the best of the best without a sanctioning body to, well, sanction those championships.

Fortunately, shutting down their IHRA operations didn’t stop a group of track owners from celebrating the season-long competition their drag racing clients have enjoyed. The owners of Gulfport (MS) Dragway, Brainerd Motorsports Park in Ringgold, GA and Montgomery International Dragway,, Montgomery, AL working alongside former World Drag Racing Alliance  (WDRA) staff, opened their doors and made sure the Southern Team Bracket Finals took place at Montgomery International Dragway the final weekend of September. 

Racers heard their call to action and more than 300 showed up at the Mississippi facility. They represented nearly a dozen southern racetracks and many of the circuits had multiple teams showing their colors. The racers came from Montgomery, Gulfport, Brainerd, Rocket City (AL), Holiday Raceway (AL), London Dragway (KY), North Florida Motorplex (Fountain, FL), Cottonwood Motorsports Park (AL), I-22 Motorsports Park in Eldridge, AL, Sand Mountain Dragway (AL) and the Baileyton, AL Dragstrip.

Although IHRA has closed its doors to racing in 2026 and possibly beyond, these track owners, situated primarily in the deep south regions of the country, banded together with WDRA and used the latter’s staff to operate these Southern Team Bracket World Finals. 

Their commitment to fulfilling the needs of sportsman racers who were left in the cold by the financial players operating IHRA, joins the efforts of Bill Bader Jr. and his family’s Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, OH, which has scheduled the Sportsman World Finals for October 22-24. That latter event offers a guaranteed purse of $150,000 for qualifying racers.