Roll Racing Vs. Drag Racing: What’s The Difference?

If you blink fast, roll racing and drag racing both look almost completely the same — if you’re even lucky enough to catch any of it by the time you open your eyes again. However, drag racing and roll racing are different motors ports in some ways. In fact, some drag racers may even tell you that roll racing isn’t a legitimate race at all. 

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The biggest difference between drag racing and roll racing is how the races start. While both are focused on reaching intensely fast speeds in a straight line, drag racing has both cars take off from a standing start as a test of pure acceleration to see who will make it to the finish line first, while roll racing has both cars holding a speed of around 40 miles per hour until the light turns green — then they take off in an attempt to reach a faster speed than the other car.

Dragsters are often focused on horsepower, since they must have a zero to 60 time that shoots them ahead of the other car. Roll drag cars, similar to popular street racing cars, care more about their handling and top speed, with both cars building boost until they are allowed to take off and race. 

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While roll racing can be an organized event on a drag strip, it got its start on the streets. It can elicit images of cars hitting dangerous speeds on highways and getting pulled over by cops — just to see who could reach 100-plus mph first. But roll racing became a much more serious sport thanks to the International Roll Racing Association, which worked with track operators to host sanctioned roll-racing events. 

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In an IRRA event, two cars went head-to-head on a quarter-mile drag strip. They’d start from a 40-mph roll, get the green light, then race to the finish line. The time it took to get there didn’t count, as it does in quarter-mile drag racing — roll-racing events focus on cars’ top speeds. 

“To some people, roll racing looks drastically different from drag racing, but it’s not that different,” IRRA founder Chris Harris told Hagerty. “The biggest difference is that the rolling start is easier on the driver and the car …. That lowers the barrier to entry, because it reduces chances for breakage.”

The IRRA’s website has gone dark, and it’s unclear if the group still exists. However, organized events continue to take over tracks, like the annual TX2K, held in March at the Texas Motorplex outside Dallas. Calling itself the Super Bowl of street car events, it has featured roll racing since 2014. Clips of the intense races can be found all over social media. 

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