Tricked out trucks, a need for speed: A fast and furious night at the State Capitol Raceway

It’s Friday night at State Capitol Raceway in Port Allen and the parking lot is packed with shiny new red Camaros, gutted vintage pickup trucks, massive old Grand Ams modified to weigh practically nothing and decorated in shimmery paint.

Tonight is “grudge racing” night, head-to-head speed battles with few restrictions, and the regular crowd is raring to go.

“It’s all about the adrenaline,” says Jacorey Rineheart, 31, who has been coming here every Friday night for years.

The sun sets over the quarter-mile drag strip as car after car bolts down it, engines blaring so loud spectators cover their ears. Some fly across the finish line at 130 miles per hour, others sputter to a stop halfway down the track.

Staff tries to match cars into comparative classes: there are the super pros, measured by the amount of electronics in the car; and the mod class, without electronics. Then there’s “Test ‘n Tune,” an unregulated smorgasbord.

“People will come in here with their brand new sports car, or a brand new pickup, and they just want to see how fast it can go,” says Gary Carter, who manages the raceway.

Others hide their speed from competitors by painting “NT,” or “no time,” on the back of their cars.

Carter says grudge races give young people a place to go on a Friday night, rather than illegal street racing on the highway. Recently, the Baton Rouge Metro Council amended an ordinance to toughen penalties on street racers, after a series of high profile incidents.

“If they like cars and like to go fast, here they have a chance to race and run vehicles and burn off energy,” Carter says.

State Capitol Raceway has been around since 1969, and is one of the oldest continuously operating tracks in the U.S. Scenes from “Dukes of Hazzard” were filmed here, and it’s been featured on Discovery Channel, MotorMania TV and more.

On Friday, the track felt like a modern day scene from “Grease.” Men polished their cars and slung their arms around girlfriends, traded smack talk and cheered on their friends.

The raceway uses a “Christmas tree” light system, kind of like a stoplight, but Carter said some nights it throws it back to the old fashioned way of using a person to count down and tell the cars to go.

While the average age of drivers at the track is mid-30s, it’s a wide range.

Shane and Trina Lopez are here every Friday night. Shane is 66 and has been racing for 20 years. Trina takes care of his tire pressure and fuel on his Chevy Vega, but she didn’t know much about cars when they met.

“For our first date, he said ‘hey, do you wanna go to the race track?’” she says. “I said ok, then he drove up with a trailer truck—he meant go to the track to see him race!”

They were married shortly after, in 2020, at a small ceremony on the drag strip.

Shane Lopez says he likes the competition, and that even in grudge racing everybody is friendly and many of them race only as a hobby.

It is not a cheap hobby, however.. Rineheart, whose 1986 Grand Am has been almost completely retrofitted — new supercharged engine, a lightweight plastic body — has spent about $100,000 on his car, and each weekend of racing runs him another $1,000. Drivers with sponsors have cars with around $300,000 of work put in, and the pros can reach up to $1 million.

For Rineheart, it’s worth it.

“I love the speed. It’s all about the rush, it takes away stress,” he says.

And, you know, winning is nice.

“Yeah, I’m in first place pretty often,” he says, laughing.

Drivers sometimes race for fun, and some nights enter races where they can win trophies or a pot of everyone’s entrance fees. It’s never enough to cover the cost of the vehicle.

To race, drivers need a valid driver’s license and to pass a vehicle safety inspection. Staff checks to make sure tires aren’t bald, that the lug nuts holding the wheels to the car are secure, that nothing is leaking, that there’s a radiator recovery tank and that the battery is securely in place.

Cars that go a quarter mile in faster than 12.99 seconds require a helmet, as do all convertibles. Glue sprayed on the track increases traction, a 4,200-foot sand trap slows cars at the end, and an ambulance and safety truck drive up and down the track.

There hasn’t been a death on the track since the 1970s, Carter says, but there have been some problems.

A couple of years ago, a man came in with a brand new Corvette that he had injected nitrous oxide into to produce more power. He misfired, blew the hood and the car caught on fire. The auto lock locked him in, so he had to break the window to escape.

The man was fine, but his brand new $70,000 car was totaled.

An average street car — say, a Toyota Camry, will top out at around 70 miles per hour on the track. A new Camaro or Corvette will reach 110-135, Carter says. So drivers modify their cars with turbo engines and other upgrades.

Not all modifications are legal.

Carter says there’s a lot of gray area on new vehicles, which often have computers installed. People can buy an On-Board Diagnostics port, typically used by mechanics to monitor emission, mileage, speed, and other data, that they can use to change their engine’s parameters.

“See that Corvette looks like its pure stock, but it’s been wildly modified with a supercharger and nitrous,” Carter says, as the sports car takes its position on the track.

It speeds off with a .0056 reaction time and finishes at about 136 miles per hour. Not bad, but others regularly reach 200 or more miles per hour on the track, Carter says.

Aside from the revving engines, things were tame on Friday night. Kids rode bikes around the cars and a few couples lingered on the edge of the track.

In a few weeks though, Carter said the stands will be packed. 

JJ Da Boss, aka Memphis Street Racer, aka “the fastest man on the streets,” will be at State Capitol Raceway with his crew on July 1 to take on anyone who wants to challenge him. 

“That’s a big event, those are the television-type racers, the famous racers, real popular with fans,” Carter said. “People go wild for that.”