Where the strips are: Meremere, Ruapuna, Taupō and the airfields

Ask a racer in Australia or the United States where they race and the answer is usually a dragstrip: a facility built for the purpose, with a tower, grandstands and a long concrete-and-asphalt straight. Ask a New Zealand racer and the answer is more interesting. Purpose-built strips here have always been few, and a good deal of the sport still happens on ground that does something else for the rest of the year.

This is a guide to the kinds of places New Zealand drag racing runs, and how they came about. For this season's calendar, go to the New Zealand Drag Racing Association or to the track; venues change and we do not keep a fixture list.

What a strip needs

Whatever the venue, a drag strip needs the same basic parts:

• A burnout area behind the start line, often with a shallow water box, where vehicles spin their tyres to heat them.
• A start line with a starting system, the christmas tree: a column of lamps for each lane that counts down to the green.
• A straight, level and smooth racing surface, at least an eighth or a quarter mile long, with timing beams at fixed distances.
• A shutdown area beyond the finish: room to slow down safely from high speed, usually longer than the racing distance itself.
• Barriers, spectator fencing and safety services, which is where most of the cost and the paperwork sits.

The shutdown is the part that rules out most sites. A road or runway long enough to race on is not hard to find. One long enough to race on and stop on, with nothing hard at the end, is much rarer.

Meremere

The country's first purpose-built strip, Champion Dragway at Meremere in the Waikato, opened in 1973 according to the NZDRA's history. It has hosted the New Zealand Nationals for most of the years since and has carried several sponsor names over that time. It currently trades as NAPA Auto Parts Dragway.

Meremere is the reference point for the sport here: the strip most racers know, the place most national records will have been set, and the venue that sets expectations for what a "proper" meeting looks like.

Thunderpark

The second purpose-built strip, Thunderpark near Hastings, opened in 1976. The NZDRA records that it struggled to attract enough spectators and closed in 1997. For two decades it shared the Nationals with Meremere. Its story is a useful reminder that a strip is a business as well as a racetrack; we look at it in a separate piece.

Ruapuna and the circuits

In the South Island, the association's history records that most early drag racing ran on the front straight of Ruapuna Park in Christchurch, with some meetings at Teretonga near Invercargill. Using the straight of a road-racing circuit is a sensible compromise: the facility already has fencing, marshals' posts, medical cover and spectator areas. The drawback is that the straight was designed for cars arriving at speed from a corner, not leaving from a standing start, so the surface and the length can be less than ideal.

The NZDRA history, last updated in 2009, also mentions a new dragstrip at Taupō built as part of the redeveloped motor racing circuit there, and plans for a purpose-built strip at Teretonga. The association's current track pages list a Taupō dragway among the venues it works with.

The aerodromes

Airfields have been part of New Zealand drag racing since the late 1960s. The NZDRA lists early meetings at Ardmore aerodrome, Napier airport and the military airstrip at Waiouru. By the time of its 2009 history, airstrip meetings were being held at Alexandra, Nelson, Masterton and Tokoroa, and the Masterton Motorplex is described as racing on the Hood aerodrome.

A runway has a lot going for it: it is long, straight, flat and usually well surfaced. It also has to go back to being a runway afterwards. That means temporary barriers, portable timing gear and a crew who can set up a dragstrip on Friday and take it away again on Sunday. Airfield meetings have a character of their own as a result: smaller crowds, a more relaxed pit area, and racers who know each other well.

Closed roads

Before Meremere, closed roads were a big part of the sport. The most famous was Kerrs Road in Wiri, south of Auckland, used for two seasons, where the country's first ten-second pass is recorded. We cover the closed-road era in a separate piece.

Mine floors and gravel

And then there is Kōpuku, the opencast coal mine south of Auckland where the first sanctioned meeting is believed to have run in 1966, on clay. Nobody would choose that surface today. It is worth remembering, though, because it explains a lot about New Zealand drag racing's habits: make do, borrow what is available, and run the meeting anyway.

Finding a meeting

If you want to go and watch, start with the sanctioning body's calendar and the track's own website. The listings change from season to season, so we deliberately do not reproduce them here. Our guide to your first drag meeting covers what to expect when you arrive.