The Ghost vs. Megatron: Big Rim Racing Rolls Into Mobile for the Port City Shootout

Most drag racing classes sort cars by weight, power adders or tire size. Big rim racing sorts them by a simpler rule, the one Sage "Donkmaster" Thomas once gave The Drive: "If you've got rims on your car, we'll race you." On the second weekend of September, that rule came to Mobile Dragway in Irvington, Alabama, for the fourth annual Port City Shootout.

WALA FOX10 laid out the weekend on Sept. 11, the day the gates opened. Friday night was big rims racing, test and tune and a fan fair, with gates at 5 p.m. and a $20 ticket. Saturday opened at 9 a.m. with a car show, then a $2,000 big rims contest, live entertainment, more big rims racing, shootouts and grudge racing, for $40 at the gate. The headline match was billed as The Ghost, driven by Ace Robinson, against Megatron, driven by Angelo Graham. Promoter Martina Moore and both drivers went on the station's Studio 10 show to talk it up.

What big rim racing actually is

If you have only seen donks parked at a show on 26s, 28s or bigger, the idea of drag racing them sounds like a joke. It is not. The cars are usually American B-body sedans, Monte Carlos, Caprices and Impalas, sitting on wheels most people would put on a show car and nothing else, and many of them hide serious power under the hood.

The Drive's 2020 profile of Thomas is still one of the best explainers. It described donk racing as a subculture inside drag racing where "people bet thousands on each race," and it reported that Thomas won about $30,000 at a strip in Holly Springs, near Memphis, against a racer known as CEO Larri and his Malibu Ghost. Thomas, who owns In & Out Customs in Charleston, South Carolina, told the magazine he keeps the hood shut once the crowd shows up so nobody gets a look at his combination of nitrous, turbos and horsepower.

The names are half the fun. Thomas runs Rucci wheels with labels like Clout, Moolah and Whippin, per The Drive. His own street car at the time was a 1971 Chevrolet Caprice convertible called the Z06 Donk, fitted with an LS7, interior and brakes from a donor Corvette. That mix of show car finish and real hardware is the whole point. These are cars that win trophies on Saturday morning and then try to keep a 26 inch tire hooked on Saturday night.

A word on the word "donk"

Purists are strict about this. The Drive's profile noted that "donk" applies specifically to 1971 to 1976 Chevrolet Caprice or Impala models, while some people use it loosely for any American custom sedan on huge wheels. The usual origin story is that the Impala emblem looks like a donkey if you squint. Box Chevys (the boxy 1977 to 1990 Caprice) and bubbles (the rounded 1991 to 1996 cars) have their own names, and so do the G-body Cutlasses, Regals and Monte Carlos that show up at every big rim race. At the track, nobody checks paperwork. If it is on big wheels, it can run.

The circuit behind it

What makes an event like the Port City Shootout interesting is that it is one stop on a calendar most of the car world never sees. GDAWG803, a big rim scene brand that posts a running schedule of the season, lists a long run of Southern shows and race dates for 2026: stops in Miami, Albany and Columbus, Georgia, Carolina Spring Fest at Darlington, a Spring Fest in Fairfield, Alabama, the Rick Ross show in the Atlanta area, Whips By Wade in Atlanta, Texas Whipfest in Dallas, Junefest in Huntsville, a Slab Fest in Monroe, Louisiana, and a Port City Classic in Mobile, among others.

That list tells you how the scene is wired. It runs across the Gulf Coast, Georgia, the Carolinas and Florida, with stops at drag strips, fairgrounds and fan festivals. It spreads mostly through Instagram handles and YouTube channels instead of magazines, which is why outsiders mostly discover it through a viral clip of a donk on 30s launching hard enough to wheel-hop down the track.

Why a local TV spot matters

It is easy to skip past a morning show segment. But a promoter and two big rim racers sitting on the couch at a network affiliate to sell tickets to a drag race is a quiet milestone. For years this scene was covered mainly by the people in it. FOX10 framed the weekend as a family event, designed, in the station's words, to bring the community together for racing, unique vehicles, food and entertainment. That is how a local scene earns room on the regular calendar.

It also shows how the money works. A $2,000 contest for the best set of big rims sits right next to grudge racing, where the real stakes are usually between the racers themselves. The Drive's profile made clear that the side action is a big part of it. In this world, the wheels are both the trophy and the handicap.

What to know before you go to one

Get there early, because the show cars line up in the morning and the racing runs late. Expect a mix of full race cars and street cars that drove in. Bring cash. And if somebody tells you their combination, they are probably lying, because, as Thomas told The Drive, the hood stays closed once the crowd arrives.

Donks have spent years being treated as a punchline by people who never saw one leave the line. A Saturday at a place like Mobile Dragway is the fix for that. The paint is wild, the wheels are absurd, and the cars are fast anyway.