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Rocky Mountain Race Week has kicked off and we're following along with the action. The format is a simple one to follow: race, sleep, drive, repeat for an entire week, hitting tracks between the American Midwest and the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Competitors will not only enjoy making laps and thrashing in the pits, but also the back roads, forgotten highways, and some truly spectacular drive locations that the middle of the lower 48 states has to offer. While RMRW has been around for a few years, 2020 was the year the event really took off as it was not only one of the few major events to not get cancelled outright, but when Hot Rod's Drag Week 2020 was cancelled, the RMRW crew stepped up and actually ran a second event for racers that year. Matt Frost, June Allison, and Adam Dorey and everyone involved in making RMRW happen are excited to see everybody out again.
321 cars are in the running, spread out among the classes. The rules are simple: the highest average time composed of the best timeslips of each race day will determine the winners in each class. Each car is self-contained...no support vehicles, restricted trailer sizes, no calling AAA for a tow when your junk breaks down. Side-of-the-road repairs happen and hotel parking lot rebuilds are nothing new. Neither are supporters, like Sugar Mama's Pies, who provide racers a sweet treat to nibble on and a free bottle of water, or the townsfolk who get to enjoy a parade of rowdy cars as they drive through remote locations, or even hardcore fans like Coady Morris, who actually flew out to a field in the middle of Kansas somewhere and parked up next to the road for some entertainment. Now that is dedication, folks!
Rocky Mountain Race Week has two main events: Race Week and Road Week, and they are exactly what they sound like. Race Week is the actual competition, where drivers have to be self-sustaining throughout the duration of the event. This means that the tools, the parts, and so on have to be carried in the car or in an approved-size trailer behind the car, that's it. If there's a breakdown between tracks, repairs are up to the driver, co-driver, and other racers on the sides of the road, that's it. No outside help. No calling AAA. No flat-towing. Break those rules or miss your deadline for the next track, and you're out of Race Week. But that's not a problem, because then you have Road Week!
Road Week is the non-competitive part of Rocky Mountain Race Week. With a drive length of about a thousand miles over some of the areas of the United States that inspired songs like "America the Beautiful", just making this grand tour alone is worth the time. So what if you missed your track time and are out of competition...did you fix your ride? Is it still road-worthy? You took the vacation time for the whole event, so you might as well make the best of it. Whether you're rolling through small towns in the prairies or are winding your way through the gorgeous Rocky Mountain backroads, the drive portion of Rocky Mountain Race Week is one you don't want to miss. Consider it a fantastic consolation prize.
Follow along on the Rocky Mountain Race Week Journey!
