NHRA has been working on a new way to test new markets without bringing a full-blown national event to town. On Thursday at the Performance Racing Trade Show, NHRA President Glen Cromwell revealed plans for the inaugural Peach State Showcase of Speed, Oct. 24-25, 2025, at South Georgia Motorsports Park outside Valdosta, Ga.
The event will feature top NHRA drivers and competitors from all four professional classes.
“It’s very important to share the NHRA experience with new audiences,” Cromwell said. “This is about listening to your stakeholders. We listen to our racers, and we listen to our member tracks. They’re incredibly important, and it’s putting them together. Raul came to us and said, ‘Listen, we really want a special event down here in South Georgia, and we’re going to do that. We’re going to bring the superstars to his racetrack.”
“It’s about gaining more eyeballs on our sport, our racers, our racetracks, and ultimately, bring them down to the national event.”
Cromwell wouldn’t go as far as to say whether these events would serve as a testbed for the Mission Foods Drag Racing Series or if there could be a test for a future eighth-mile national event.
“We’re going to start slow,” Cromwell added. “We’ve got a great track here. I always said we crawl, walk, run. We’ll see where this takes us. But we have high expectations that this will grow into something big.”
The showcase will include two drivers each from the Top Fuel and Funny Car divisions, alongside four competitors from the Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle categories. Fans can see 330-mph, 11,000-horsepower nitro cars in action, along with renowned NHRA stars.
Tickets for the inaugural Peach State NHRA Showcase of Speed offer single-day and two-day options, VIP experiences, and camping. The event aims to provide the atmosphere of a national event at an NHRA Member Track.
SGMP Owner Raul Torres said the event has been in the planning stages for a while now.
“This means the world to us,” Torres said. “It’s a college athlete going through the big leagues. When you deal with the top dragsters and funny cars working with NHRA, it is being in the big leagues. This is what every track owner hopes for, and we’ve achieved that in the short 16 months now. The facility’s been there for 22 years, and it’s been on everyone’s radar. But now, with the push of my wife and our support and myself, they’ve listened to us, and they’ve been an asset from the very beginning.
“Since we purchased the racetrack, they’ve supported us in whatever we needed, from bringing in a jet dryer one race that we needed to be on the phone at midnight when we had questions about insurance claims. The NHRA has been nothing short of an asset, and they want to bring that level of success to the medium market, such as Valdosta, and we can’t thank them enough.”
Details on participating drivers will be announced soon, featuring major NHRA stars, current champions, and longtime competitors. More information about the event’s schedule and additional classes will follow.
Bill Bader Jr., whose one-day Night Under Fire is the benchmark for success for independent events, praised NHRA and Torres for thinking outside of the box. He will be helping in this inaugural presentation.
“It’s a sampling of all the best that the national event has to offer, and we’re going to add the lions and tigers and bears and, oh my, and create an incredibly exciting evening of family entertainment,” Bader said. “That’s the goal. I’m excited to be working with Raul. He is an incredibly passionate, inspired guy, and he wants the very best for his racetrack. I get to educate him about a few things relating to explosions, marketing, and everything in between.
“I do think the goal is to create a pure entertainment package. There’s going to be sportsman racing and there’s going to be some other stuff we’ll be announcing in the coming weeks. I’m really excited about it. I think it has huge potential. We can take the NHRA brand into other markets and grow our fan base.”
South Georgia Motorsports Park has a history of strong local participation and fan turnout, making it an ideal site for this showcase. The event will highlight NHRA’s commitment to expanding nitro racing, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle events to new markets.
