The Texas Mile is a speed demon’s paradise, where standing mile races are held to answer one question: how fast can you go? And what’s more demonic than speeding through the night? Facing similar conditions to Austin’s Formula One race last weekend, The Texas Mile opted to run when it was dry—in the dark.
It’s impossible to lay down a fast, safe run when insane thunderstorms are drowning out any hopes of decent traction, so the Texas Mile kept several lights on along its long, paved runway and let competitors have at it after hours.
This is the first time The Texas Mile has ever run at night, but they ultimately decided to do so after several rain delays had already affected the weekend schedule.
This Corvette was one of the fastest four-wheel night runs posted on The Texas Mile’s Facebook page at 207.2 mph.
Here’s a Kawasaki ZX-14 that’s been turboed up to 450 hp running under the lights. 226.5 mph! Who needs daylight?
This beastly sounding Mustang laid down a 207.1 mph run.
One of the best things about The Texas Mile is the variety of vehicles that show up: four-wheel, two-wheel, supercars, muscle cars, and the occasional person who’s built something wacky for a specific land speed record, or who’s curious about their daily driver’s go-fast properties. You name it—it can probably run at the Mile.
Here are the some of the other runs in the dark posted on their Facebook. It almost looks a little more like a regular drag strip than the Mile from some angles, doesn’t it?
2010 Camaro (named “Brandi”), 199.9 mph.
Boostworks’ 2015 Mustang GT, 170 mph.
1965 Corvette, 160 mph.
Another extremely loud Camaro, 191.5 mph.
Camaros made a lot of The Texas Mile’s videos. Either Camaro fans were really dedicated to running this year, or they’ve proven to be an absurdly fast car for land speed racing. Here’s one more rowdy Camaro run.
On Sunday morning, wild winds whipped the course just as they’d done in the rest of central Texas. The Texas Mile, of course, was happy to have a dryer and a tailwind!
[H/T Gizmo - The Only Good Gremlin, but don’t feed me after Midnight]
Contact the author at stef.schrader@jalopnik.com.