‘Doorslammer’ is a drag racing term for a full-bodied car with functioning doors – in other words, your bog-standard saloon.
Yet nothing is remotely bog-standard about the ‘saloon cars’ heading to Santa Pod Raceway from across Europe this month for the venue’s annual large-money bonanza shootout, THE DOORSLAMMERS – powered by FuelTech. Yes, they all have roofs and doors, sprung chassis too, but that’s where resemblance concludes.
A £100,000 prize pot beckons, ‘powered by FuelTech’, the Brazilian/American manufacturer of high-performance engine management and motorsport electronics systems which builds its debut as supporting partner to the event. FuelTech also sponsors the Motorsport UK British Drag Racing Championship and the championship’s 250mph, V8-powered Pro Modified cars will be prominent among the heavyweights in THE DOORSLAMMERS’ premier VP Racing Pro Doorslammer division.
Unlike regulated championships, however, THE DOORSLAMMERS is an outlaw event, a high-performance free-for-all. If racers want to pep up their motors, twist up their turbos, in pursuit of the large payout, they can. In another detour from rulebook standards, qualifying results do not determine pairings on an eliminations ladder. Instead, pairings are drawn at random for each round, piling on the instant knockout drama.
Yet drag racing does not only revolve around thumping V8s. Europe’s potent quarter-mile menu offers many different flavours. THE DOORSLAMMERS features seven other classes: Turbosmart Pro Street; True Street; Coated Race Bearings Front-Wheel Drive; Four-Cylinder; Tom Wrigley Performance Five/Six-Cylinder; Jeff Bull Race Engines 7.60 Heads-Up; and Williams Bros Big Bracket. Plus, there’s a selection of Scandinavian Top Doorslammers displaycasing their own racing style over the eighth-mile.
Entries range from the Nordics to the Baltics, Poland to Portugal, and even out to Bulgaria. A wealth of multi-cylinder and FWD ingenuity and innovation exists in Eastern Europe, often overviewed in drag racing’s conventional western scene, and THE DOORSLAMMERS is a beacon for racers eager to swap bumpy airfield runways for Santa Pod’s pristine, championship-quality concrete.
Rules governing the Turbosmart Pro Street and True Street classes sound unlikely in such company, but they demand proof of MOTs and road tax. Participating vehicles are indeed road-legal. Meanwhile the Jeff Bull Racing Engines 7.60 Heads-Up class is open to track cars racing on a 7.60-second index and the Williams Bros. Big Bracket is a catch-all for entrants dialling in between 6.99 and 11.99 seconds.
THE DOORSLAMMERS Powered by FuelTech takes place from Friday 15th to Sunday 17th May 2026 at Santa Pod Raceway, NN29 7XA, and shares the weekconclude with the Volkswagen festival VW Breakout.
Tickets are bookable only online or by phone – visit https://santapodtickets.com/p/thedoorslammers or telephone the Box Office at 01234 782828. Full event information can be found at https://santapod.co.uk/events/doorslammers/.
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