A dragstrip is a long, straight, narrow track where drivers race specially built cars in short, explosive contests of pure speed and acceleration. Two cars line up side by side, engines roaring, and when the light turns green, they blast forward in a straight line for a quarter mile (about four football fields). The whole race is over in seconds, with the fastest cars crossing the finish line at over 300 miles per hour.

Dragstrips became popular in America in the 1950s when car enthusiasts needed a safe, legal place to test their souped-up hot rods. Before dragstrips existed, young racers sometimes used dangerous public roads. Modern dragstrips have special surfaces that help tires grip better, timing equipment that measures speed to the thousandth of a second, and safety features like parachutes that help the fastest cars slow down after they cross the finish line.

The sport is called drag racing because “drag” can refer to the air resistance that slows cars down. Racers work to reduce drag by making their cars as aerodynamic as possible. Unlike oval racetracks where cars turn left repeatedly, a dragstrip tests one thing: which driver and machine can go fastest in a perfectly straight line. Some dragstrips also host car shows where people display custom vehicles they’ve built.