Event News: 2021 Spring Shakedown Emerald Coast Dragway Cancelled

Unfortunately, the springtime gathering of diesel trucks at Emerald Coast Dragway will not be happening in 2021. Ryan Milliken, Owner of Emerald Coast Dragway, reached out to me a few days ago and wanted to share the news and see if we could spread the word. The release of this information will hopefully kickstart someone or a company in the southeast looking to do an event at this location with a now open surface.

DA– It’s unfortunate that we won’t be able to make the trip down to Florida in March like normal but is there a chance that we could see something else in the Shakedown’s place?

RM– “Maybe. I wanted to get this out there sooner than later in hopes that someone else in the south-east was contemplating putting something together in the month of March and we as an industry could get behind that instead of this one. We will have our Emerald Coast Diesel Event in September still with the Outlaw Diesel Super Series and I intend to put 110-percent into that one vs being 50-percent being spread between the two.”

DA– I’ve always enjoyed the Spring show. It brought a lot of the local competition out and made for one hell of a show for the fans.

RM– “The Diesel Event at ECD has always been a huge hit. Competing with the Pro Mods and the Gassers as the local crowd favorite. The first year (2017) ECD was re-opened it was Diesel Thunder – Spring Break, hosted by the track and local promoter and friend of mine, Michael Cassaday. It was a huge success. The second year it was still Diesel Thunder – Spring break, but this time was after I took over the lease on the track, and together, Michael and I tackled the bear of keeping this event going. Again, a huge success. The third year hit some rocky times as Michael had an overwhelming amount of stuff going on in his life including an upcoming overseas deployment with his reserve/guard unit. It almost didn’t happen but at the last minute, I picked it up and ran with it to keep it alive. Huge success again, but this time with the name SunCoast Spring Shakedown. Lastly, 2020 came around, running again with the SunCoast Spring Shakedown name but with the outbreak of covid and tons of uncertainty in the air at the time, the event went off but many of the expected vendors, spectators, and racers were either unable to make it or just flat out didn’t show up. That was the last weekend the track was open for several weeks during this year’s silliness.”

DA– I remember all of those events and like you said, a great success. I understand too what goes into these races and how much it takes to make it all go together.

RM– “Yes. This brings us to the current. Putting together an event of that magnitude requires endless hours of work on the front side to put together. That all by itself can be overwhelming, let alone running the track itself, a shop, and trying to squeeze in time for your family and yourself. The main reason I’ve decided to pull the plug on the show is that I’ve recognized the fact that there are only so many pieces you can cut out of a pie before the pieces are so small they’re not even worth having, the one man marching band show I’ve had going on for years now is tired and needs to refocus. So, as Ryan from Emerald Coast Dragway, I say that the 2021 track schedule is nearly full and we don’t need to do the spring diesel event to pay the bills. As Ryan from Hardway, I say thank god. That gives me plenty of time to focus on the September ODSS event out there and make it into what it deserves to be. In the event a super-hero wants to step in and carry the flag, March 6th is open at ECD and I have access to (as well as a strong push from behind) put some truck/diesel events together at our sister facilities South Georgia Motorsports Park and Orlando Speed World. I know this will negatively affect some of you who have already requested the time off for the March date I put out in the smaller circles but, I hope you understand my reasoning and I really hope you can all make it at once to our September date.”

I understand completely why this happened and I think you all will too. At the end of the day, we all need to stick together and make it out to these events and keep our sport growing. With that being said, the Outlaw Diesel Super Series schedule is out right now. Get your 2021 calendars out and starting putting circles on those dates.