No-prep racing is massive in the USA and has been for years; it’s fast and loose, and makes for exciting viewing. It can also be sketchy, but for some, that’s part of the attraction. In the States, the quickest cars are deep into the four-second zone over the eighth-mile on a ‘no-prep’ surface, which means they’re packing between 1800hp to 2500hp. Insane!

First published in the August 2026 issue of Street Machine

The great thing about no-prep racing is that it can be held anywhere there’s a length of asphalt wide enough for two cars side by side. You don’t even need a timing system. Many events in the US are run with nothing more than a guy with a flashlight at the startline, and a bloke with a radio to make the call of who won at the other end. 

Chris and Amanda Morris from Growl Racing have put a lot more effort than that into their Blacktop Outlaws Festival, which had its inaugural event in Casino, NSW in late June.

“We were on the hunt for months and months, going to all the different airstrips, and Casino was the first one where we found out they actually used to have drag racing there,” Chris says.

Located in the Northern Rivers area of NSW, Casino is a regional town of about 12,000 people. It sits on the Richmond River, where you’re more likely to find a few hundred thousand head of cattle rather than a hundred thousand horsepower, but with a rarely used, 1030m-long airstrip, it’s the perfect place to hold a no-prep drag racing event.

“We’ve done a few track days at Queensland Raceway and Lakeside,” Chris says. “A lot of the racers were telling us they’d like to do something grassroots, so here we are.”

Drag racing meets at Casino used to be run fairly regularly by Northern Rivers Drag Racing, but between COVID and floods, the area has copped it pretty hard over the past seven years. The last meeting at the airstrip was in 2019, so the local council was pretty keen on a new event to bring people to town. 

The idea itself was pretty simple: a weekend of no-prep racing at the Casino Aerodrome, as well as a Saturday-night festival featuring a live band and food trucks at the local showgrounds. The ocation was ideal, with a massive BIG4 Caravan Park right next door to the airstrip. 

To help run the day, Chris had the guys and girls from the Taree-based Mid Coast Drag Racing Association bring their startline tree and timing system to keep everything kosher. Even though there were no times being recorded for the day, having a proper timing system helped when the racing was too close to call.

Just like our own Street Machine Drag Challenge, the racing classes were mostly divided by tyre size and types, with the field split into six classes ranging from Hard Tyre through to Big Tyre. There was even an AWD class called Double The Grip, Twice As Quick, so there were classes for everyone, and with 130 entrants, the Growl Racing team certainly filled their quota for the event.

With the grass areas too waterlogged for pit allocations, the organisers decided to divide the airstrip into two, using the western end for the pits and the eastern end for racing. Saturday’s test session was the first and only chance for racers to get a good look at the track, because on Sunday, we would be straight into racing. The surface itself has grooved asphalt, with deep lines cut across the blacktop every 70mm or so all the way down the strip. Despite the non-standard racing surface, entrants seemed to be getting some traction, with many favouring the PSR Radials in the classes that allowed for them, rather than the softer Mickey Thompsons. As one racer quipped, the abrasive surface would chew up a set of soft-compound tyres in just a few runs. 

There were no times recorded or timecards handed out; if racers wanted that info, they had to record it themselves using a Dragy or datalogger. This was drag racing in its rawest form, with a pro-tree and win light, and nobody was talking about 60-foot times or ETs.

After Saturday practice, racers either retreated to the BIG4 to talk race strategy in preparation for Sunday, or headed to the showgrounds to check out the cover band Big Day Shout, who were putting on a free show for the locals. It was pretty well received too, with around 1500 people heading over to party, and there were a few dusty heads the next day.

Sunday morning brought the sounds of local lyrebirds, turbocharged race cars, and clear blue skies. There had been some discussion about the possibility of rain on race day, but the same-day forecast now had the clouds arriving long after the scheduled activities, so it looked like we were in for a solid day’s racing.

Then came the next surprise of the weekend: the plan was to run the entirety of each class at a time. It was an interesting concept and one that would keep racers on their toes. After each round, the winners would return to the startline and run again, and again, until the last two cars in the class were sorted. Only then could they return to the pits to get ready for the finals. The only cooldown time racers had was when they waited at the other end of the strip to come back as a group, due to the fact that there was no return road. 

First group down the strip was Big Tyre – the only class that was allowed to do a burnout across the line. This was for cars running big slicks or radials, and it featured some of the real big bangers of the event. Blown combos like Greg Trapnell’s Biscayne and Brian Thomas’s Camaro had the crowd fired up as they both made impressively loud and fast, smoky passes down the strip. But in the end, it would be Thomas’s blown Camaro facing off against Mark Tralau’s ‘Burrito Bus’ Chevy Malibu wagon in the final, with the Malibu taking a close victory at the stripe.

Then we moved into the AWD class, where double the grip didn’t always mean twice as quick, but the variety among the entrants certainly kept things interesting. With a pair of Mitsubishi Evos, a Nissan GT-R, an old-school VR-4 Galant, a Trackhawk, a Polestar EV, and a late-model BMW M3 wagon among the runners, there were some unusual and intriguing match-ups. In the end, it all came down to old school versus new tech, with the 700hp+ Galant up against Lenny McCorry’s ultra-modern BMW M3, with the latter’s slightly better reaction time sealing the deal.

Gangsta Tyre seemed to be one of the more popular classes, with entrants limited to a 26×8.5in tyre – or 235 radial if you preferred – and there was a mix of Commodores, Toranas, Cortinas and Corollas vying for the win. Fresh from his Street Drags win at Rockynats, Woody from The Skid Factory had seriously thrashed on his 2JZ-powered VR Commodore to repair some valve damage in time for the event, and after a few rounds of racing, he faced off against the nitrous-assisted LC Torana of Tony Bennett. At the startline, they looked evenly matched, but then Woody’s Commodore powered away from the Torana coupe to show a clean pair of tail-lights for the win.

Then it was time for the Small Tyre guys to shine, although with the class allowing rubber up to and including 275/60 radials and 28×10.5 slicks, it didn’t really feel like a ‘small-tyre’ class. As the second largest class of the meeting, there were plenty of contenders for the trophies and cash, but as some entrants discovered, there were also plenty of ways to lose. Burnouts across the line meant instant disqualification, and the start beams had a very tight rollout, making it all too easy to bump through the beams. In the final, it was an all-Commodore affair, with Dan Meredith’s Barra-powered, golden VC sedan up against the turbo 427ci VH sedan of Fletcher Patterson. It was a tight match-up, with both cars leaving the line cleanly and evenly, but the extra cubes of Fletcher’s VH seemed to give him the edge at the line and he took the win.

Hard Tyre was for the true street guys, with no rollcages and a minimum tyre treadwear of 200. Power management was the name of the game on hard street rubber, and many failed to get it right, with some smoky passes for those who tried a little too hard. Dane Turnbull seemed to have it sorted though, with his little Gemini powering away from Luke Day’s VE SS wagon in the final.

That left us with the largest bracket of the day, the Street Tyre class, and with over 50 competitors, it was going to be a fight to make the final. This was the class for real street cars running DOT-style drag radials. You could run PSRs, Heros, Nankangs or Mickey Thompson SS radials up to 275-width, but no pro radials or rollcages.

The final ended up being a Holden versus Ford battle, with the turbo LS-powered VL Commodore of Jacob Morgan-Briggs facing off against Lee Bloom’s turbo BA Falcon. Both drivers had defeated a handful of cars apiece in quick succession to make the final, but some wheelspin around the 60-foot mark from Bloom’s Falcon handed the win to Jacob’s V8-powered Commodore.

The track crew pumped the cars through quickly, and all the finals were finished just before 2pm, which just left presentations and grudge runs, and plenty of racers took the opportunity to have at least one last blast down the strip before packing up. In terms of racing, it was a pretty solidly run affair, and racers, spectators and food vendors – most of whom sold out of their wares – all had big smiles by the end of the day.

So, will Blacktop Outlaws return next year? “We’re definitely talking about it,” Chris says. “The council wants us back; they’re really happy. So, we’re going to have a meeting with them later in the week, but I think it’ll be back around the same time next year.”