Two of these new tracks are owned and operated by longtime track operators with extensive experience outside of hosting NHRA national events, while the other two are led by comparatively green owners. In the days leading into the 2026 season,\u00a0Drag Illustrated<\/em>\u00a0spoke with these new NHRA national event track owners to get their perspectives on all the things that come with hosting an NHRA national event for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s Note: This is an excerpt from a roundtable interview that originally appeared in DI #199, the Interview Issue, in March\/April 2026. The first in this series featured South Georgia Motorsports Park\u2019s Raul Torres<\/a>. Stay tuned for interviews from U.S. 131 Motorsports Park\u2019s Jason Peterson and Rockingham Dragway\u2019s Dan VanHorn.<\/em><\/p>\n Royce Miller<\/strong>\u00a0is the owner of Maryland International Raceway in Budds Creek, Maryland. MIR will host the inaugural NHRA Potomac Nationals May 29-31. Miller and his family have owned and operated MIR since 1989. Though he sold the track to IHRA\u2019s former parent company, IRG, in 2015, he stayed on as track GM and reacquired the track in 2021. Located around an hour south of downtown Washington D.C., MIR and its Potomac Nationals will introduce fans around the nation\u2019s capital to NHRA professional drag racing during the United States\u2019 250th anniversary. MIR will also host a Division 1 double divisional in mid-June.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n How long has hosting an NHRA national event been on your wish list?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Well, we had talked to NHRA for probably the last four or five years. We\u2019ve had informal discussions about it. I was just looking for the window of opportunity, and they called me when they were ready.<\/p>\n What are the opportunities that come with hosting one? What are the challenges?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The World Cup Finals, the largest event we do, we are at capacity, so the NHRA race won\u2019t be bigger than that because we can\u2019t physically hold any more than what we hold for that event. World Cup is the template we\u2019re using for all of our logistics here: food, parking, things like that. As far as the facility stuff goes, NHRA is going to handle what they\u2019re going to put where, and all those kind of things.\u00a0<\/p>\n I own a farm next door that we use for parking. We have a great relationship with the motocross track next door to us. During their National, we provide space and the logistics for their event, and they are, in kind, doing it for the NHRA event and the World Cup. So for that reason, we have enough parking for the capacity of seating.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is just one more major event that we add to our facility here, which increases economic impact in the region, and notoriety, as far as the visibility of the raceway to new companies and racers that run national events only. Those are all pluses. We have a great relationship with our community and our county government. We are seen as an asset and not a liability with the powers-to-be.\u00a0<\/p>\n What have you done already to prepare and what\u2019s left to do?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The main thing we had to do that NHRA and Top Fuel racing in general required was replacing the jersey walls with the poured walls, and the higher walls that we need for the fuel cars, where it steps up at the 1,000-foot mark. Then, the gravel trap and the catch system for these cars is more elaborate than what we had prior because we didn\u2019t run those type of cars. Those are the biggest things that we\u2019re doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, we\u2019re also taking advantage of this opportunity to rewire the Compulink timing system. Bob Brockmeyer, Larry Crispe, and myself wired it in \u201992 together. And the three of us are going to rewire it. We\u2019re putting all the conduit in now. We just finished, actually today, all the new conduit on the back of the walls and getting everything out of the ground that\u2019s been there for 35 years. I\u2019m excited about that improvement.<\/p>\n All the concrete walls are done in the gravel trap. The poles are set. It\u2019s a new longer and wider gravel trap over what we did have. Larry Crispe is going to get the nets here and installed. We still have some debris fencing to build around it. But we\u2019ll have all those well before the national though.<\/p>\n At the turnoff, we are widening that about 12 foot to help with the turn radius and stacking on the sides.\u00a0<\/p>\n The rest is more cosmetic. This is year one. We\u2019re trying to be careful on what all we do, and find out after year one, what\u2019s the priority after that. But there\u2019s only so much we can get done in the amount of time that we\u2019ve had. This winter has been hateful with the weather we\u2019ve had in February and late January.<\/p>\n What do you hope this event accomplishes for your track, your fans, racers, community?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The NHRA national event is the pinnacle of our sport. If you\u2019d have seen the track when I took over in 1990, it looked like a deserted airport. So to be able to have navigated over the 38 years that I\u2019ve been here to get to this point, personally, it\u2019s very satisfying. I\u2019m looking forward to standing between the first pair of Top Fuel cars going down the track, knowing that we took it from where it was to this level. I\u2019m proud of that point, to have brought that to this area, with the exposure, it\u2019s wonderful.\u00a0<\/p>\n I do believe this will bring in more notoriety for the track and this area, between the people that attend the event and people that will see us on television, and think \u201cI wondered what that place looked like,\u201d because we have a very limited road frontage here. When you drive by, if you don\u2019t pull in, you don\u2019t know how big we really are.<\/p>\n We\u2019re the first Fox network televised event of the year. So you want to make sure you\u2019re ready for it and dot your Is and cross your Ts the best you can.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post Maryland International Raceway\u2019s Royce Miller Discusses Preparation For NHRA Potomac Nationals\u00a0<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the NHRA celebrates its 75th anniversary this season, fans can expect to see plenty of familiar and even nostalgic elements \u2013 the return of legends, the celebration of the people and moments that made NHRA history, and even official uniforms that harken back to the \u201cglory days\u201d of the sport.\u00a0 But the NHRA Mission […]<\/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-103712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103712","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=103712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Maryland_JRC_4466-Enhanced-NR_Darrel-Jackson-Jr-photo_watermarked.jpeg\")
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