Drag Racing in Israel: How a 40-Year Motorsport Drought Finally Ended

ByKenji Alvarez

A Scene Built From Almost Nothing

For most of the 20th century, organized motorsport in Israel was effectively illegal. A single Formula 2 event at Ashkelon in 1970 — run on the roads of an unfinished housing estate near Barnea Beach — was about as far as things ever got. Then nothing for more than four decades.

That changed in March 2011, when the Knesset amended the regulations that had made organizing motor racing events all but impossible. What followed was a rapid, improvised, genuinely grassroots build-out of Israeli motorsport. Drag racing was part of it almost from the start.

The Eilat Circuit and Its Drag Strip

The first venue to host serious racing after 2011 was a temporary circuit laid out in a harbour-side parking lot in Eilat, right on the Red Sea. It was exactly what it sounds like: cones, barriers, and tarmac that already existed. But it worked.

The Eilat layout hosted Formula Israel events — an affordable, accessible feeder series — along with motorcycles, drifting, touring cars, and supermoto. It drew spectators who had never watched live racing before. In 2013, a drag strip was added using the circuit’s back straight. Not a purpose-built facility. But for a country that had practically zero racing infrastructure two years earlier, a working drag strip was a genuine milestone.

The Formula Israel programme was deliberately low-barrier: roughly two dozen applicants were selected each year to be trained in racing, with the stated goal of making the sport accessible to ordinary Israelis rather than just the wealthy.

Motor City: Israel’s First Permanent Track

The Eilat setup was always temporary. The lasting infrastructure came later, near Be’er Sheva — a city in the northern Negev, roughly halfway between Eilat and Jerusalem. Motor City Israel is an Italian-designed 2.1-kilometre permanent circuit that meets FIA standards up to Formula 3. It opened for competition in 2022.

The Negev location is a real asset. Good weather almost year-round, cooler desert nights, and air density conditions that most Middle Eastern venues can’t match. The facility runs national-level car and motorcycle races, track days, and a racing school. Israeli touring car star Alon Day and fellow racer Yarin Stern are among the instructors.

Expansion plans exist — a projected 4.5km layout, hotel accommodation, car showrooms, and a 15,000-seat grandstand. How much of that materialises is an open question, but the core circuit is real, running, and already the hub of Israeli motorsport.

What the Drag Scene Actually Looks Like

Dedicated drag racing in Israel is small by international standards. There’s no Israeli equivalent of an NHRA calendar. What you mostly get are drag events attached to larger motorsport days, or occasional sessions at facilities with a usable straight.

The cars are a mix. Modified Japanese imports, European hot hatches, and local builds all show up. Israel has a small but serious tuning community, and you see some genuinely quick machinery — turbocharged builds that would hold their own at European events. The climate matters here: cooler intake temperatures from desert nights help both forced-induction and naturally aspirated engines run stronger.

For comparison, the wider Middle East region does have more developed drag infrastructure — Bahrain International Circuit runs a dedicated quarter-mile strip affiliated with the NHRA’s worldwide network — but Israel’s scene has a different character: scrappier, more DIY, and still clearly growing.

Finding Events

Motor City’s social media presence is the most reliable way to track upcoming drag and motorsport days. Events fill quickly and rarely get wide advance publicity. If you’re planning a trip around a specific event, build in flexibility — the calendar shifts.

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