Outlaw All Stars at St. Louis

Words and photos by Bret Kepner

In January of 2009 Gateway International Raceway General Manager Len Batycki knew something had to change. With the fiscal forecast for the coming season anything but bright, Batycki pondered the options for a facility that needed to stimulate spectator interest on a regular basis.

The track’s bracket program, while pulling over 200 cars per event, had already been decimated by the owner of the track (Dover Entertainment), because of a total lack of fan attraction. Its weekly Street Car Shootout Series, believed to be the sport’s only weekly sixteen-car qualified field of heads-up racers on street tires, vastly outdrew the bracket events in spectator attendance and the fabled Midnight Madness shows, a monthly free-for-all of racing, music and general socializing, was Gateway’s biggest “cash cow”.

Still, something needed to be done to attract real drag racing fans on a consistent basis. With few funds with which to launch a concept, simply booking a field of Pro Modifieds, nostalgia nitro machines or even a pair of jet dragsters was out of the question. The program would have to be a cheap investment not only for the track but for the potential spectators and the participants. With the aid of GIR Drag Racing manager Rich Schaefer and several consultants, the Gateway team struck upon an idea that is as old as the sport itself.

The decision was made to simply reinvest in the community for both racing talent and fan interest. As in most parts of the country, the greater St. Louis area had seen a shift in racer direction from brackets to heads-up competition and the competitors simply wanted a place to race. There were definitely enough quality racecars to make up a show and the concept didn’t need two hundred entries to be attempted. In fact, the idea was to present a truly spectator-oriented racing program in which eliminations could be completed (barring unforeseen disasters) in the well-documented attention span for patrons of any entertainment form…two and a half hours.

Again, it was simply a matter of reviewing the sport’s previous successes. The basis by which all dragstrips made their weekly bread fifty years ago was still a viable option. The original formula, which included making stars of the local racers to attract local fans week after week, was combined with the current lure of true heads-up drag racing involving no handicap starts. As the original promoters knew, purses had to be kept extremely modest to allow an equally low admission price. Likewise, the track had an obligation to negate any added expense for the competitors.

While GIR could have adopted the rules from any of the seemingly dozens of heads-up racing associations, it quickly became obvious any imposed regulations would force some potential racers to spend cash to conform to those rules while others may be shut out of the program before it ever began. The solution? No rules… Well, almost no rules.