Drag and Drive under the Midnight Sun
Alaska Speed Week will debut June 11-16, 2023, at Alaska Raceway Park (ARP) in Palmer. The drive will then go up through Denali Park to Fairbanks and North Pole. The next stop will be Tanacross, located just outside of Tok, for drag races, before heading south through Glenallen and finishing back at ARP.
Racers will set an average time at each race to determine how they finish the event and must drive their cars between checkpoints while visiting the Last Frontier. Along the way, they will tour with hundreds of other hot rod enthusiasts to see Alaska like it’s never been seen before.
Alaska Speed Week, Presented By Sick The Mag, will bring drag-and-drive competition to the furthest reaches of North America for the first time.
From June 11 to 16, 2023, racers will take on Alaska Raceway Park before an epic drive to Tanacross, a historic former Air Force base that now hosts motorsport of all kinds. From mountain drives to grizzly bear sightings, this might just be the wildest route for hot rodders yet!
This brand new event is now taking on expressions of interest before releasing open entries to gauge just how many American and Canadian racers are prepared to take on the ‘Last Frontier.’
Alaska Raceway Park’s Michelle Lackey Maynor said adding a drag-and-drive competition to their calendar was a must-do after seeing the success of events like Sick Week, Hot Rod Drag Week, and Rocky Mountain Race Week around the USA, as well as Canada’s Miles of Mayhem. Together with a local team of racers, including Tim Wilson, Steve Lord, Allen Garrett, and the Alaska Sports Car Club, they came up with the Alaska Speed Week concept.
“Combining drag racing with the beautiful roads of Alaska seems perfect, and there is a lot of demand in the drag racing and wider car communities for this kind of event to be held here,” she said. “It’s part competition and part ‘grand tour,’ which for many people will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Sick The Mag publisher Tom Bailey said there was no more fitting location for an event that aligns with Sick’s unofficial slogan: ‘For the adventure.’
“The idea of street-legal race cars with thousands of horsepower roaming the expanses of Alaska and dodging bears and moose and whatever just sounds so cool,” Bailey said. “When Michelle, Jeff, and the team at Alaska Raceway Park first got in touch with us about running a drag-and-drive event, we knew it was something we had to pay attention to.”
Alaska Speed Week is a Sick-affiliated event, which means that it draws on the considerable talents of the Alaska Raceway Park team to run the event while coming under the Sick umbrella of event coverage and quality that racers have come to expect.
“We’re working with the Alaska Raceway Park team on rules, tech and generally providing guidance on running a drag-and-drive event. They’re already very experienced in running drag racing events obviously so I think racers can expect a top-tier event all the way.”
Expressions of interest are now open. If you think you and your ride are capable of taking on this level of adventure, now is your time!
Get on board with Alaska Speed Week Presented By Sick The Mag!