What the hell is this?: The Thunderdrome! ranks amongst the craziest damn thing most people have seen in some time. We took a once-abandoned velodrome, excavated it from under tons of overgrowth and neglect, fixed the surface and started holding this race you see before you. It’s a track long dead brought back to life in the city that made racing possible in the first place. It’s truly a spectacle to behold.
When?: Saturday, June 30th, 2012. Racing is 2:00PM-7:00PM while the afterparty follows immediately after on-track.
Afterparty?: At track from 7:00PM ’til whenever. Includes some rockin’ bands, beer and wine and a whole slew of surprises. Totally included in your ticket price.
Where?: The Dorais Velodrome located at Mound Road and Outer Drive in Detroit. It’s a great big park with a lot of history attached. Some locals call it Derby Hill as the soapbox derby nationals used to be held there long ago.
Classes Racing?: Moped, Scooter, Supermoto, Motard, Minibike, Road Bicycle and Mountain Bike. (Fixed Gears are now grouped with Road Bike. Sorry, Hipsters. We’ve also nixed go-kart this to allow us to rethink the class.)
Cost?: $25 to race. $5 to spectate (free for 12 and younger). Tickets located at the top of this page. Spectators can buy at the door of the event — but racers need to register online beforehand with ticket sales ending Wednesday, June 27th at 9:00pm sharp.
Parking?: We’re working on an official guarded parking lot with free shuttle. In the meantime, this event is strictly street parking. There’s enough of it to go around. Make sure to leave your valuables at home or take them with you. We’ll have an unloading zone set up for racers to unload gear into the pit. Pit spaces will be limited and strictly first-come, first-served in the newly renovated on-site pit area.
Pits?: The pits will be the old parking lot near Outer Drive. Come to Race HQ to get your pit pass so our gate people will let you in. Space is very limited; we’ll only allow a few vehicles into the pit area and the rest will need to unload there and park elsewhere. Be prepared to cart all of your things into the pit and set up without your van.
Bathrooms?: The bathrooms at the velodrome are of the porta-potty variety. We contract Don’s ‘Lil Johns and they’re quite nice.
Food?: Food will be provided by some very excellent food trucks we’ve contracted. They’re incredibly impressive.
Drink?: We’ll be selling beer, wine, water and soda at the event. No outside beer, liquor or wine is allowed per our insurance.
Practice?: Practice will be held the day before the event from 12:00PM ’til 5:00PM. You may do tech inspection at this time as save both of us the hassle come race day. You’ll come up to the tents near the track to check-in for race day and do tech.
Race Day?: Tech and practice on race day starts at 9:00AM and ends promptly at 12:00PM. Anyone not tech’d by 12:00PM will be unable to race.
More Questions?: Feel free to hit us up anytime at hello@thunderdrome.com