Burning Rubber in Brooksville

Leadfoot City Grand Opening Weekend Draws Crowd

The weekend of December 21 a mighty roar was heard from 17109 Old Ayers Road, as Leadfoot City kicked off its two-day official grand opening festival. Brooksville’s new automotive theme park boasted plenty of engine-revving and tire-burning activities. Spectators were treated to drag racing on Saturday, drifting on Sunday, burnouts, and concerts from tribute bands Led Zep Live and No Doubt & Gwen Stefani.

The community came out in full force to be a part of the action. Men and women of all ages, along with children, lined the spectator areas and got their first taste of the newly opened Gear Head Grille and the Wheelie Bar. Multiple food trucks and art vendors were also present, adding to the festivities.
Leadfoot City is a multi-purpose and entertainment complex with a 1/8 mile drag strip, a paved area for drifting, a dedicated burnout pit, and its own restaurant and bar. This unique venue provides an opportunity for Hernando County residents to spectate or participate in automotive sports in their own backyard without the long drive to parks in Orlando, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Lake City, or Gainesville. This is especially convenient for competing drivers who previously towed their vehicles over long distances.

To create a sense of community and care among parkgoers, Leadfoot was created as a private club. According to Leadfootcity.com, the paid Citizen’s Membership comes with many perks and discounts for private track and room rentals, early access to tickets, and Tech Cards, which allow the holder to race their car on the different tracks. Tourist Memberships, which are free, allow parkgoers to buy tickets for events, book track or party rentals, and race their cars minus the discounts.

Located in rural Brooksville, Leadfoot City used to be just a concrete burn-out pad with an automotive shop and the remaining chicken coops and egg-packing facilities of the former chicken farm that covered the property. But over the past few years, many renovations, building removals, and improvements have taken place, such as the renovation of one of the huge coops into the current beautifully decorated VIP room.

This place is truly where the rubber meets the road. Altogether, the park is covered in five acres of pavement. The new drag strip is full concrete with solid pour concrete safety walls reinforced with rebar. Fully paved staging lanes are in front of spectator grandstands. Leadfoot, in keeping with the city theme, has a street light hung over the track starting line to simulate street racing. The goal of the park is to provide a legal and safe way for anyone with a “lead foot” to race their vehicle.

Hernando County is no stranger to auto sports. With the advent of American car culture, drag racing came on the scene in the 1950s and 60s. According to “Millennium History of Hernando County,” the old Brooksville Army Airfield’s 5,000-foot and 7,000-foot runways were used as the track. Locals were free to race as they wanted, with many teens modifying old 1930s or 40s cars to be race-worthy or even testing the limits of the family car. Events would draw as many as 3000 people, with spectators’ cars lining the track’s airstrips.

Don Garlits, a Tampa speed shop owner, caught wind of the “track” and decided to race a car that he had built himself. According to “Old Brooksville In Photos & Stories,” September 2000-Volume 28, in April of 1959, “Big Daddy” Garlits broke his own record for the fastest quarter mile in the country by reaching 185.566 miles per hour, much to the chagrin of the competitive California drag racers. However, the track fell out of use after the tragic death of a fifteen-year-old Tampa teenager who tried to race his old Mercury in reverse.

Growing in popularity in America and around the world, drift racing, or drifting, originated in Japan in the 1970s and was popularized worldwide by the 1990s anime “Initial D” by Shuichi Shingo and Justin Lin’s “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” (2006) movie. For those unfamiliar with this form of auto sport, Wikipedia defines it as “a driving technique where the driver oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner or turn.”

For the spectator, this means a delightful roaring of engines, screeching tires, and smoked-filled air as drivers burn their tires in quick maneuvers, sending tiny tire particles flying into the air and sometimes into the stands.

According to “A Look Back at the Story of Drifting” on Hotcars.com, race driver Kunimitsu Takahashi is credited with first using this style of driving while racing. In order to gain a competitive edge against his fellow racers while compensating for “poor grip holds and lower-quality racing tires his cars would have,” he began to slide into racetrack corners “and then powering out into a straight line,” to exit the turn more quickly and pass other racers.

Just like with drag racing, drifting is more accessible today to amateurs without race cars and dedicated tracks. The Leadfoot City facility gives them that chance. And just like at the Brooksville Army Air Field in the 1950s, you can still see a beginner driver pulling off stunning moves in his or her grocery-getter.