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January 13, 2025The dirt track located in Ararat, VA has been shuttered since the end of the 2021 season, but 2025 will bring the roar of racing engines back to the little bullring.
The track formerly Rolling Thunder Raceway and Ararat Thunder Raceway will now be known as the Ararat BullRing. Coupling the location and the nickname of the facility into the new name with a raging bull for a mascot just fits the 3/10-mile red clay oval.
The track will be operated by a promoter with deep ties to short track racing, but primarily of the asphalt variety. Langley Austin, who most recently promoted Franklin County Speedway in Callaway, VA for the last decade, and founded RACE22.com, the leading short track media for asphalt Late Model Stock Car racing.
Just because his background is in asphalt, doesn’t make Austin a stranger to dirt racing, aside from being a big fan of dirt track racing, Austin has covered dirt track racing as a media member and working public relations for area dirt tracks in the past. Austin is excited about this opportunity to operate Ararat and work in the dirt racing world.
“Dirt track racing is easily the most entertaining form of short track racing,” said Austin. “I’ve been a fan for years and haven’t spent many Friday nights in the stands at Ararat enjoying some great racing. I talked to Gary (Nester owner of Ararat) for the first time about running the track in 2014, but it took 11 years to make it happen.
I’m looking forward to the opportunity. This track is one of the raciest tracks around and I’ve hated to see it closed down the last three seasons. With me and my family moving on from Franklin County, it opened the door for this opportunity to happen.”
Austin says that he has a lot of work to do but thinks he has an enthusiastic group of racers ready to help put the show on for the fans.
“These local racers have been abandoned by the local tracks in recent years,” Austin explained. “These guys have been having to travel all over the place to race, some two and three hours to race. Luckily some had touring series to follow around but traveling all the time to race just isn’t feasible for most local racers. Having a home track back will allow them to hopefully race more and they seem eager to keep a close to home track open.”
One big change for the track this season will be the night of racing. In the past, Ararat has been a Friday night track but with no other area tracks operating, Saturday night will be the night of operation for 2025.
“Saturday nights just make sense,” Austin quipped. “It’s hard to race on any other night of the week to start with. This track has been behind the 8-ball from the day it opened because of trying to stay off race nights of other area tracks. Saturday night will give more people the chance to race and hopefully will lead to strong car counts in all divisions.”
Opening night is set for Saturday, April 26th with the full schedule set to be released in the coming weeks as the new management works through scheduling, divisions, rules, tires and a plethora of other details with the season opener under three months away.
“We’ve got a lot to figure out in a short time here, but I’ve done this before and the racers here have been great so far,” concluded Austin. “These guys just want a place to race, and I think we can give them that and build this place up over the next few years to put Ararat back on the map.”
More details will be released when available over the coming weeks. The best place to find out information on Ararat BullRing is on our new website at https://araratbullring.com/ and on our new facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AraratBullRing.
Cover Photo by: Rebecca L. Perry [...]
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