Spend the Day at the Kauaʻi Raceway Park - Hawaii Magazine (2024)

A fraction of a second.

That’s what it’s all about. The late-night track preps. The early morning tow. The money. The time. All for a fraction of a second.

On the west coast of Kaua‘i, past the small country town of Kekaha—where, for many, farmers markets and shoreline fishing are the premier weekend activities—lies a strip of pavement that’s seen more action than a lot of roads in Hawai‘i. You’d miss it, if not for the sign that reads “Kaua‘i Raceway Park.” And it’s here, on the westernmost National Hot Rod Racing Association racetrack in the United States, that racers compete to see who’s the fastest.

Tony Ricci, president of the Garden Isle Racing Association, or GIRA, which governs the track and hosts drag racing events throughout the year, is probably the busiest guy on the field. The wide-smiling race official hails from New York but has been living in Kekaha for over 30 years. He stares intently down the track as the “tree”—the electronic countdown lights at the start line—drops from yellow to green. In a flash, a pair of racers in souped-up cars take off. They reach speeds over 150 mph, covering the quarter-mile distance in just under 10 seconds. Ricci smiles. This is what he and the rest of the drivers, pit crews and families here live for.

“We do it out of love,” says Ricci, who has served as the president of GIRA for just over a decade, “and we do it for a bigger purpose.” Ricci got involved with the racetrack 15 years ago, after talking with his then-teen son, who along with dozens of other Kekaha boys, would race on the island’s empty country roads. As a drag racer himself—Ricci raced motorcycles for years with the Harley-Davidson drag racing team—he wanted to know why his son and other local kids raced on public roads instead of the track at Kaua‘i Raceway Park. Turns out they just couldn’t afford to go to the track, he says, which is owned and leased out by the state. So Ricci got involved.

On a grassy knoll overlooking the track, there are stands for spectators. Across the raceway, a control tower monitors the track; it’s the computational brain for the high-tech laser systems that record the speeds and times of race cars. The road is smooth and made for racing, with guardrails and firefighting equipment set at regular intervals. But the place wasn’t always so refined. When the track was built, in 1969, it was essentially a strip of blacktop on dirt and not much else. Before the track could be completed, the governing body in office state officials pushing for the raceway left, and the Kaua‘i Raceway Park was left in limbo for decades.

Fortunately, people who love to race are crazy. The level of dedication and passion racers have for their sport borders on mania, but it’s because of this addiction that the track has thrived. Even before Ricci got involved with GIRA, a crew of volunteers turned the track into a race-worthy strip, creating their own barricades with tires and fixing the pavement, all out of pocket. However, to make the track safe enough for street racing for teens, Ricci and the GIRA committee began working with the Kaua‘i Council and state Legislature to secure funding for repairs and improvements.

“We ended up with $2.5 million to redesign the track and pay engineers and all that,” says Ricci. “And then we needed another million dollars to redo the surface, and that went over a bit so we needed an additional half-a-million to make sure we could also pull electrical because before, there was no power here and people would just set up a big generator for lights.”

Fortunately, with the money in the right hands, the track was transformed into the NHRA-sanctioned track it is today, and after years of development and renovation, it was awarded the NHRA Most Improved Track award in 2014. And GIRA was also able to start a youth program for young racers age 8 to 16, getting them off the street and onto the track.

One such young dragster is on the track right now. Heating up his tires by burning out, which helps them stick to the road better, Nahoa inches forward, his dad and uncle helping to guide the custom-built dragster along. Finally, they back off and now it’s just Nahoa, the lights and the track. Yellow turns to green and he shoots off the line, topping out at 50 mph and making it to the finish line in 12 seconds. Nahoa, at 8 years old, has just completed his first drag race.

“They’re the future; they’ll eventually take over and start taking care of the track,” says Ricci, who understands that the role of GIRA and the Kaua‘i Raceway Park is to help raise up the community’s next generation of racers. “You always want the next crew to be better than you were and to be moving forward.” Fortunately, as it turns out, drag racing is a sport dominated by families. In some pit crews, like Ricci’s, there are three generations of drivers, from grandpas to granddaughters, all prepping for their races. And it makes sense. Most of these cars are built by hand by drivers and their crews, with expenses skyrocketing into the tens of thousands. And while the barrier to entry can be high, fiscally, many junior dragsters get their start by inheriting hand-me-down cars fromfamily members.

On race day, the track is a beautiful cacophony of noise. Engines are stress tested, cars are burning out on the track, pit crews are buzzing with activity. And it’s all for a brief moment of unadulterated speed. The races work like this: Racers will set their times—how fast they think their cars can make it down the quarter-mile track—and will essentially race against themselves. The closer they can get to their time, the better they do. If they make it to the end faster than their set time, they’re disqualified—and that’s where the science comes in. From the temperature on the track to the wind speed, the humidity in the air and the time of day, everything matters. And for drivers, they’re all racing for a fraction of a second, to pass the line as close to their time as possible, and no faster.

Thanks to the wizardry of the track’s aforementioned high-tech computer and laser beam measurement system, two wildly different cars can race against each other on a level playing field. And, as many drivers will say, much of the race is determined by the driver’s reaction speed off the line. Once the tree falls, drivers are off the line in—hopefully—under a second. A good time would be half a second; many drivers are even faster off the start line. And it’s in these minuscule moments of time that these drivers thrive.

And for spectators, it’s a thrill watching all of their favorite Hot Wheels come to life. Many of the race cars here are so modified, so souped up, that they’re no longer even street legal—most are towed to the track in the wee hours of the morning for day races. GIRA runs through a variety of formats throughout the day, from drag races to “door slammer” runs to motorcycle races. (A door slammer is slang for a street car, one with doors, that has been modified to go at extreme speeds). With little downtime between races, spectators are given a near-nonstop show as racers take off one after the next. It’s loud, it’s fast and it’s one of the best ways to spend an afternoon on Kaua‘i.

At the end of the road, waves break on an empty shoreline. “Yeah, we’re probably the only raceway with a beach,” says Ricci. Here, it’s quiet. You can’t hear the revving of engines and the chorus of people looking to Ricci for administrative advice—that’s all waiting for him a quarter-mile down the road. Like pretty much every driver at the Kaua‘i Raceway Park, Ricci has dedicated so much to the pursuit of racing. It’s an insane amount of work to make the track race-worthy come race day. Race crews come out three days in advance of the races, around 6 p.m. after their members finish up at their day jobs, to begin the laborious process of laying rubber on the road. And they’ll be there till past midnight. The only night they don’t come to prep is the night before the races. That time is spent working on their cars.

To the community and members of the Garden Isle Racing Association, however, all the work, effort, blood, sweat and gears is just part of the process. Sitting under his pit tent, George Matsuda, stares at his 1948 Fiat replica, which he’s owned for “quite some time.” “My life would have no meaning without this,” he says, with a degree of certainty you can only get through a lifetime of racing.

For more information on the upcoming 2024 Garden Isle Racing Association event schedule, visit dragracekauai.com.

This story was originally published in our Winter 2024 issue. Buy a copyhere.