How We Pulled Off the World’s Greatest American Drag Race
Key takeaways
- America’s 250th birthday was just the excuse we needed to revive Motor Trend’s epic drag race series.
- That’s how long it took for the, uh, “least quick” car in Motor Trend’s World’s Greatest American Drag Race to cover half a mile, or nearly nine football fields.
- As we sought out drag race venues that could handle four vehicles, we realized we were going to end up with way more pavement than we needed.
Why this matters: an automotive development that could shape industry direction or buying decisions.
America’s 250th birthday was just the excuse we needed to revive Motor Trend’s epic drag race series.
Seventeen point four seconds. That’s how long it took for the, uh, “least quick” car in Motor Trend’s World’s Greatest American Drag Race to cover half a mile, or nearly nine football fields. We’re journalistically prohibited from using the word “slow” in this story, because nothing about a nine-vehicle race boasting 8,302 total horsepower is slow.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOWGetting to the starting line, however, was a marathon rather than a flat-out sprint. When we pulled up to California’s March Air Reserve Base in May, the project had been some 15 million seconds in the making. Staff photographer William Walker planted the seed six months earlier when he pitched what eventually would become the cover story for our Summer 2026 issue. To celebrate America’s 250th birthday, we corralled a Ford Mustang GTD, Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X, Lucid Air Sapphire, and a Czinger 21C for a high-speed study of what American automakers are capable of. From the outset, we knew that we wanted to—no, were obligated to—lap these giants on a track, hustle them over Southern California’s asphalt playgrounds, and line them up for a drag race.