Brainerd International Raceway

Brainerd International Raceway at a glance

Location

Brainerd, Minnesota

Type

road course & oval

Length

3.1 mi (4.99 km)

Turns

10

Direction

clockwise

Surface

asphalt

Opened

1968

Owner

Jed and Kristi Copham

Capacity

20,000

Address

5523 Birchdale Rd

Phone

+1 218-824-7223

Website

birmn.com

Track map and layout

Brainerd International Raceway is really two facilities in one: a 0.25-mile NHRA-sanctioned dragstrip built along the original main straight, and a pair of overlapping road courses cut through the wooded terrain north of the city. The Donnybrooke Road Course, the original 1968 layout, is 3.1 miles with 10 turns and a notably wide 60-foot main straight that lets cars carry very high speeds — drivers see top speeds approaching 180 mph before braking down to roughly 80 mph in the slowest corners. The newer Competition Road Course, completed in 2008, is a tighter 2.5-mile, 13-turn layout built for closer, more technical racing. The two configurations share sections of pavement but offer very different characters, giving event organizers flexibility between a high-speed, old-school road course and a more modern, technical one.

Configurations

Events and race weekends

Brainerd's headline weekend by far is the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals drag racing event, one of the longest-running stops on the NHRA national tour and the reason most spectators know the facility. Beyond drag racing, the road courses host SCCA and NASA club racing, MotoAmerica-adjacent motorcycle events, drift competitions, and the facility's own Apex and Club Track Days program for street and track cars.

Getting there and parking

Brainerd International Raceway sits north of the city of Brainerd in Minnesota's lakes region, roughly 130 miles northwest of the Twin Cities, so most visitors drive from the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area rather than flying directly in.

• Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) · about 150 min drive
• Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport (BRD) · about 20 min drive

Hotels and camping near Brainerd International Raceway

BIR is unusual among these tracks for the scale of its on-site accommodation: the facility offers deluxe on-site condominiums as well as extensive RV camping, and it is also surrounded by more than 100 resorts, hotels and bed-and-breakfasts in the wider Brainerd Lakes vacation area.

Where to look

The city of Brainerd, Baxter, and Pequot Lakes, all part of the wider Brainerd Lakes Area resort region.

Track days, driving experiences and lap records

Beyond the NHRA drag racing calendar, Brainerd's road courses stay busy with SCCA and NASA club racing plus the facility's own Apex and Club Track Days program, which opens the road course to street and track cars on a regular basis through the season. The dragstrip also runs Wide Open Wednesdays, giving street-legal cars a chance to make timed passes.

Who runs days here

• SCCAcar
• NASAcar
• BIR Apex/Club Track Dayscar

Lap records

Spectator guide

Brainerd is built primarily around the NHRA Nationals crowd, with grandstands lining the dragstrip and a track culture built around race-week camping and community. Spectators at the NHRA event get close-up views of the burnout box and starting line, while road-course spectating is more low-key and centered on club events.

Best places to watch

Dragstrip grandstands near the starting line and finish line offer the best views during the NHRA Nationals.

Weather

• Aug: warm Minnesota summer conditions, typical highs in the low-to-mid 80s°F, during the NHRA Nationals
• May-Jun: mild spring conditions with a chance of rain for early-season road course events

History of Brainerd International Raceway

Cleared from the woods

Brainerd International Raceway began life in 1968 as Donnybrooke Speedway, built by George Montgomery and Bud Stahel, who cleared a racetrack through wooded terrain on the south side of North Long Lake, northwest of Brainerd, Minnesota. The facility opened in stark, no-frills fashion: an NHRA drag race using the main straight came first in July 1968, followed a few weeks later by a full road-course grand opening featuring SCCA sports cars, all without safety barriers, run-out areas, permanent grandstands, or even restrooms in those earliest days.

A name change and steady growth

In 1973, road racer Jerry Hansen purchased the facility and renamed it Brainerd International Raceway, reflecting its ambitions beyond a single regional speedway. Over the following decades the road course, later named Donnybrooke in honor of the original name, built a reputation among road racers for its very high speeds, helped by an unusually wide, 60-foot main straight that let cars approach 180 mph. The dragstrip side of the business grew in parallel, anchored by the NHRA's Lucas Oil Nationals, which became one of the longest-running and most popular stops on the NHRA national tour.

Modernization and today

Ownership passed to the Copham family in the summer of 2006, and the facility has since seen significant modernization, including reconstruction of the dragstrip and, in 2008, the addition of a second, tighter 2.5-mile, 13-turn layout called the Competition Road Course, giving organizers a more technical alternative to the fast, old-school Donnybrooke configuration. A severe thunderstorm caused significant damage to the property in July 2015, but the facility recovered and remains one of the largest multi-purpose motorsports complexes in the upper Midwest, combining NHRA national-event drag racing with a full season of SCCA and NASA road racing, club track days, and its own on-site camping culture built around the annual Nationals.

Frequently asked questions

Other tracks nearby

• Spring Creek Motocross Park · 167 mi · motocross
• Gimli Motorsports Park · 317 mi · road course & oval
• Iowa Speedway · 333 mi · oval
• Road America · 356 mi · road course
• Blackhawk Farms Raceway · 371 mi · road course
• The Milwaukee Mile · 387 mi · road course & oval