2024 Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion
Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion
Humboldt, Iowa
July 4-6, 2024
2024 Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion
The annual Hog Drags & Nostalgia Reunion will take place July 4-6 at Humboldt County Dragway—that’s Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for those of you without a calendar handy. Jay Rogers of Iowa is the ring leader of this merry band of drag racers, and he’s also the chief cook and bottle washer of this event.
If you have any questions about this race and the gathering of the yesteryear granddaddies, please contact Jay Rogers via social media or give him a call. He’s very easy to find.
Thursday will be set up and an informal meet and greet by all, complete with a friendly test and tune on the Humboldt County Dragway 1/8th mile racing surface. Be advised this is an old-fashioned Dragway with open sides adjacent to each lane. If you are in the right lane and go right, you get to visit the local farmer’s corn field. If you are in the left lane and you go too far to the left, you will be grass drag’n in short order. I strongly suggest you stay in your lane at all times!
When your travels bring you to HCD, after many miles of gentle rolling hills filled with corn fields you see the turn in the road with the small white and blue sign that reads “Humboldt County Dragway AHRA.” Yes, right away, you are greeted to yesterday when you see the American Hot Rod Association logo in conjunction with the barbed-wire fencing to keep wandering critters out of the drag strip pit area that comprises the dragway.
It is like literally falling asleep in a time capsule, and waking up sometime in the 1960s and Ta Da: Here you are, welcome to yesterday! No Musco lighting, just a handful of half-size telephone poles with a bulb in them. No Bose sound system, just a few PA bull horns on poles and the afternoon broadcast sounds like a 60’s AM Radio broadcast and what’s coming out of it doesn’t matter, you can’t make heads nor tales of it anyway!
Wake up, butter-cup, you’re not in the modern era anymore, this isn’t fancy, this is yesterday and that’s exactly what we are here for: To celebrate yesterday’s machines with drag racing as it was, when organized (?) motorcycle drag racing first began.
Yes, there are some definitive classes and competition. Today’s racers would never settle for less, but the rules are simple, and so is the racing. This is a Nostalgia event, and it’s more about celebrating and reliving yesterday than setting records and trying to impress the masses. A nostalgia event is a gathering of geezers who want to revisit yesterday’s machines and good times—one more time.
The roadways in the pit areas are crushed stone on top of packed dirt. Occasionally, a water truck will wet down the bare dirt areas to keep the dust down. Everything else is grass, nicely mowed. This is not Indy; it’s Iowa. Dig out your Blue Suede Shoes and get with the program.
This wonderful trip down memory lane is courtesy of the 2024 Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion, held this year at Humboldt County Dragway. Single-engine and double-engine nitro is spoken here, as well as double-engine gas Triumph, Yetman frames, and Fairbanks Morse magnetos. A four-inch Avon slick or a five-inch M&H Racemaster is the standard board of fare for rear tires.
Before modernization takes over and the new generation spoils this, I hope racers and fans come see this and learn about where the sport was back in the 50’s and 60’s and see how it all began. Back in 1960, when Pete Hill first went to his local drag strip in South Carolina, drag bikes were not welcome. So he installed one of his Knucklehead racing motors into a small dragster chassis and added a roots type supercharger to it. Racers go racing – that’s what they do!
In the 50’s when racers like Clem Johnson, Joe Smith, Chet Herbert and THE George Smith of S&S Cycles, back before there was an aftermarket, when they raced, it was whatever they could lay hands on to make their bikes go fast.
At this race, you can see that kind of early American ingenuity. Back when motorcycles were foot-shifted and hand clutched. Many drag bikes in the early 1960s had only three wires on them, and two of them were spark plug wires. The third one was to ground out the mag to kill the ignition. Life was simpler then. In 1966, a gallon of gasoline was about .31 cents/gallon. Sandy Kosman and Yetman were just getting going making racing frames, and LBJ was in the White House.
Granted, at the 2024 Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion, most of the bikes actually racing here are more from the 1970s era of drag bike racing, but there are representations of close to 75 years of drag racing from 1950 through 2024 fuel bikes. If you have a drag bike, Jay Rogers will find you a class to race in.
Thursday afternoon into evening T/T. Friday qualifying will be from 12 noon to 6 PM. Saturday will start the day with a “last Chance” to qualify round, followed closely by eliminations beginning at 12 Noon. ATTENTION IN THE PITS: Saturday night after a party, with the cover band “Hair Ball!”
- Nitro Nostalgia Class has a $100 entry, 100% payback, NO BUYBACKS, A and B fields determined after qualifying. 8 bikes or less the field will be combined, chip draw by tower for pairing
- Nitro Open Class has a $100 entry, 100% payback, NO BUYBACKS
- Nitro Pro Dragster $100.00 entry fee with 100% payback., NO BUYBACKS
- Vintage Fuel class(4 inch rear tire only) $100 entry, 100% payback, NO BUYBACKS
- Money Bike E.T. class has a $50.00 entry, 80/20 purse, and 1st round buybacks are allowed. NO DELAY BOXES
- “Run What You Brung” e.t. class has a $50 entry fee with 80% payback, NO BUYBACKS
- Vintage Gas classes $30.00 entry 80% payback, NO BUYBACKS, A and B fields determined after qualifying. 8 bikes or less the field will be combined, chip draw by tower for pairing
- Super Gas 6.30 index $50.00 entry, 80% payback, NO BUYBACKS
- Super Pro 6.90 index $50.00 entry, 80% payback, NO BUYBACKS
- Street Bagger $50.00 entry, 80% payback, NO BUYBACKS
- Outlaw Bagger $50.00 entry, 80% payback, NO BUYBACKS
- Handshift class $50.00 entry, 80% payback, NO BUYBACKS
We reserve the right to make changes and adjustments to the above based on turn out
Spectator prices
$20 per day pass
$50 for the weekend no concert leave after the races.
$80 for hairball and weekend
$100 vip and weekend if any left day of show.
See you at the 2024 Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion, July 4-6 at Humboldt County Dragway!
Nostalgic Dragbike Racing League
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