{"id":103618,"date":"2026-05-15T16:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/eat-sleep-races-brian-mabutas-talks-fast-life-fest-at-cecil-county-dragway\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T16:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:44:08","slug":"eat-sleep-races-brian-mabutas-talks-fast-life-fest-at-cecil-county-dragway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/eat-sleep-races-brian-mabutas-talks-fast-life-fest-at-cecil-county-dragway\/","title":{"rendered":"Eat Sleep Race\u2019s Brian Mabutas Talks Fast Life Fest at Cecil County Dragway"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the gates swing open at Cecil County Dragway this Saturday morning, Jim Halsey\u2019s Rising Sun, Maryland quarter-mile will host something it has never seen in the history of the track: a no-prep drag race.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the headline tucked inside Fast Life Fest 2026, the two-day motorsports festival landing at Cecil County on May 16-17. The brainchild of Eat Sleep Race founder Brian Mabutas in partnership with Discovery Channel Street Outlaws stars Farmtruck and AZN, the Fast Kids Club, and Teter Built, Fast Life Fest packs a no-prep program, a kids\u2019 power-wheel drag race, a car show, a burnout contest, vendors, and a Junior Dragster slate into one weekend built for racers and the families they bring with them.<\/p>\n

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For Mabutas, the whole thing started with a phone call.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to Discovery Channel\u2019s Street Outlaws star Jeff \u2018AZN\u2019 Bonnett, and he said that him and Farmtruck love seeing the power wheels content, and this was three years ago,\u201d says Mabutas. \u201cI told him with all these millions of views that the kids content is getting, we were considering making it a live event where we could get spectators. Within that same conversation we said, \u2018OK, why don\u2019t we actually turn this into an event with real drag racing combined with the kids power-wheel drag racing,\u2019 and then obviously add a car show element to it. Long story short, that\u2019s how the idea of the event came together. Obviously, their background with no prep, we decided to make it no-prep drag racing. Alex took control of promoting and managing the kids portion, and then Eat Sleep Race and Farmtruck and AZN were on the side of promoting and producing the drag racing and the car show.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cecil County booking wasn\u2019t random. Alex Teter of Teter Built had already run kids\u2019 power-wheel races at the track, and the parent base that fuels that grassroots scene lives within a tank of gas of the Maryland strip.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe chose Cecil County because Alex already hosted a few of these kids power-wheel drag races at other events at the track, so there was a history already there, and because his community of parents that race these cars are local to that track,\u201d says Mabutas. \u201cIt\u2019s only two hours away. We have people that could support us within a two-hour radius. The hardest part about this was convincing Farmtruck and AZN to do the event over there because they were 20 hours away, but they believed in the idea, and that\u2019s how we landed on Cecil County. The idea has floated of taking the event over to their area, but the problem is we\u2019re able to draw over 100 parents to this event because Alex has built up this community of kids racers that are very local. There\u2019s a lot of risk if we were to take it out of state, because the largest community is the one he\u2019s built locally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The competition slate is intentionally wide. Saturday runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. as a test-and-tune and grudge day with a $60 tech card. Sunday is the heads-up payday: Small-Tire 28\u00d710.5 Non-W, Stick Shift H-Pattern, All Motor, Honda FWD, Daily Driver, Junior Dragster, RWD\/AWD, 11.50 and 10.50 Index, Test and Tune, and Run What You Brung. Eighth-mile classes share staging lanes with quarter-mile classes. Imports and domestics run the same ladder. The Power Wheels cars get their own program in the lanes, and every kid 10 and under gets through the gate for free.<\/p>\n

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The sponsor row reflects the build. Summit Racing Equipment, HPS Performance Products, and Exedy Racing Clutch back the event, Peotter\u2019s presents the car show, and Kids Wash Club presents the kids\u2019 car show.<\/p>\n

Before the green light drops, Brian wanted to make sure one name landed in print.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecial recognition would be the partners, Farmtruck and AZN, Eat Sleep Race, Fast Kids Club, and Teter Built, and also a shout-out to Jim Halsey for believing in the idea,\u201d says Mabutas. \u201cThis event is actually the first no prep that he\u2019s ever ran at Cecil County in the history of the track, so thanks to him for believing in the idea and allowing a no prep to run at Cecil County Dragway.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last line is the real story. A Mid-Atlantic mainstay opening its prepped surface to no-prep racing for the first time, on a weekend built around kids in power wheels, is the kind of crossover the sport keeps needing more of.<\/p>\n

Tickets and the full schedule are at fastlifefest.org.<\/p>\n

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This story was originally published on May 15, 2026. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post Eat Sleep Race\u2019s Brian Mabutas Talks Fast Life Fest at Cecil County Dragway<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the gates swing open at Cecil County Dragway this Saturday morning, Jim Halsey\u2019s Rising Sun, Maryland quarter-mile will host something it has never seen in the history of the track: a no-prep drag race. That\u2019s the headline tucked inside Fast Life Fest 2026, the two-day motorsports festival landing at Cecil County on May 16-17. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}