What does dedication look like? It looks like dragging yourself and your racecar out onto a solid sheet of snow-covered ice and spending a day in sub-freezing temperatures to get your racing fix in the dead of winter in one of the most frigid regions of the country.
And that’s precisely what the warm-blooded, hearty souls in Merrill, Wisconsin do a few weekends a year when the Wisconsin River freezes over in January and February — they claim a piece of the lake inside the Council Grounds State Park, set up a legit dragstrip with a mobile timing tower and announcing stand, clear off a couple of lanes and a pit area and go drag racing like its the middle of the summer (minus about 60 degrees of air temperature, give or take).
We’ve shared a number of cool clips over the years from the one-of-a-kind Merrill Ice Drags, but this fresh new video that found its way across our desk from Skeye Motionography might be the best yet. The Skeye crew filmed the Ice Draggers’ February 4th event from every angle, including from the sky with a drone or two, giving those of us at home a little taste of some mid-winter drag racing action without actually freezing our tail off to take it all in live.
If you’re dedicated and borderline desperate to see some racing, we’d highly suggest a trip up north to Merrill. And, if you want to go racing yourself, they’ll even share with you how to make a set of ‘nailies’ (yes, they are what you think they are).