While their core product offering of Footbrake events in the Southeast remains Walton and Beard ’ s marquee affair , they plan to take the Loose Rocker alliance into a new market in 2021 , namely with the inclusion of a six-figure bracket race paying $ 300,000 to win .

The event , which was dubbed the Summit Racing Equipment St . Patrick ’ s 300 , was originally scheduled in March at North Carolina ’ s GALOT Motorsports Park , but was rescheduled to July 27-

31 due to an unfavorable forecast on the weekend of the original date . “ We ’ ve wanted to venture into the big-money bracket racing arena for about five years now and we ’ re finally going to do it this year ,” says Walton .

Organizing founders Anthony Walton and Michael Beard

While there ’ s no shortage of six-figure bracket races on the horizon , Beard and Walton feel that they ’ re bringing something different to the table in terms of payout structure . “ Instead of having to make the split just to break even on the weekend , we ’ ve front-loaded the round money super heavy , so just by winning the third round you actually earn more than your entry fee ,” explains Beard .

Another noticeable edit to the eight-race schedule this year is a refined Southeast genre of events , almost exclusively held at Piedmont Dragway . While Walton and Beard have toured their series to multi-state locales in the past , they ’ ve come to agree that their most heavily attended events are held within the borders of the Tar Heel state . Therefore , except for their big-money $ 300,000 premier at GALOT , the remaining seven events will be held at Piedmont , where they ’ ve enjoyed a tremendous following over the years .

Loose Rocker ’ s triple $ 10K events are quickly

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHIP BRALLEY , MICHAEL BEARD AND VAN ABERNETHY