{"id":90735,"date":"2023-12-22T20:18:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T20:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/dialed-in-dragway-of-magnolias-2023-success-story\/"},"modified":"2024-01-20T23:50:37","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T23:50:37","slug":"dialed-in-dragway-of-magnolias-2023-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/dialed-in-dragway-of-magnolias-2023-success-story\/","title":{"rendered":"DIALED IN: Dragway of Magnolia\u2019s 2023 Success Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Ohio winters can potentially be brutal for racing, Tad and Jim\u2019s Dragway of Magnolia has been pretty fortunate over the last several years, and a reflection of the 2023 race season proved some of the most cooperative weather in recent memory. In fact, it hardly rained out any events at all this year at this eighth-mile facility located just south of Canton. \u201cWe\u2019ve been very fortunate this year with the weather,\u201d says Jim Rankl, who\u2019s co-owned this folksy dragstrip with Tad Ries since 2012.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #185, the 30 Under 30 Issue, in Nov\/Dec of 2023.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Rankl, the eldest of the two, first came to Magnolia Dragway more than 60 years ago to race, and he and Ries have both had a stable full of race cars over the years, along with a business partnership that dates back decades, beginning with a successful car dealership. Their core business at Magnolia is bracket racing, and they try to begin each season in May, although the weather rarely cooperates as well as it did this year. \u201cThere\u2019s been seasons past when it rained the entire month of May and it\u2019d be June before we opened!\u201d recalls Rankl.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Tad Ries (left) and Jim Rankl have jointly owned Tad and Jim\u2019s Dragway of Magnolia since 2012.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While the track dates back to 1957, and is among the oldest still-active tracks in the state, to Rankl\u2019s knowledge the track has never once been sanctioned. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually had an IHRA official come out and look the place over, and while it wouldn\u2019t take much for the track to become sanctioned, we continue to operate independently.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Magnolia offers its own points series, and anyone who races here is automatically entered. \u201cWe don\u2019t make you sign up and pay a fee to enter our points program, we automatically keep track of your points, and the season lasts from, say, mid-May to early September,\u201d says Rankl.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sunday bracket events are contested across three classes: Street, No-Box, and Box, and each weekly winner qualifies for the Dash for Cash run-off at the end of the year, where the winner receives $1,000 with $300 being awarded to the runner-up. The Dash for Cash has been a very popular attraction for the area bracket racers who frequent Magnolia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The United Manual Transmission Racers visit Magnolia twice-yearly and put on a great show for the fans, packing the pits with stick-shift race cars. The UMTR group had a roster of 12 events on their 2023 calendar, including stops at Magnolia in June and July. \u201cThose guys tell me that they love coming here, and their Magnolia events pull cars that don\u2019t attend any other venue, so that\u2019s really great to hear,\u201d dishes Rankl.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several years ago, the Ladies Racers were formed at Magnolia, and features all-female events held monthly. \u201cThose events are typically held on Saturday, and the ladies pick their own race dates, and there\u2019s test-n-tune and gambler\u2019s races on the same day,\u201d explains Rankl. The ladies drive street cars or all-out race cars, and they\u2019re also diligent about collecting money from sponsors for their group, including Summit Racing, who\u2019s generous to their cause.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The ladies have also continued the initiative of giving away bicycles to the kids at a special event, usually held in May. This is a practice that\u2019s something of a time-honored tradition at Magnolia for quite a while, and when the Ladies Racers got involved it further expanded the practice through their efforts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Magnolia has also capitalized on the no-prep movement through their involvement with the D-Team No Prep Series. \u201cThis is a group that races a lot in Ohio, visiting a number of tracks, including two stops here at Magnolia,\u201d says Rankl.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By late October, the season is winding down at Magnolia, and the hopes of another mild winter and dry spring next year would please all involved. \u201cThe Almanac says this winter could be a bad one, so we\u2019ll see what happens,\u201d smiles Rankl. Regardless, though, when the weather breaks there\u2019s a mainstay of racers who eagerly await each new race season here at their beloved dragway in northeast Ohio.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The post DIALED IN: Dragway of Magnolia\u2019s 2023 Success Story<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Ohio winters can potentially be brutal for racing, Tad and Jim\u2019s Dragway of Magnolia has been pretty fortunate over the last several years, and a reflection of the 2023 race season proved some of the most cooperative weather in recent memory. In fact, it hardly rained out any events at all this year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,78117,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-race-pages","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90735","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=90735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91122,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90735\/revisions\/91122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}