Holley LS Fest East: Autocross Action From Bowling Green

Bowling Green, Kentucky, is known for being the home of the Chevrolet Corvette. The iconic American sports car is manufactured and revered here with the National Corvette Museum just across the street from the plant where they are crafted. Holley Performance Products also calls this little city in the middle of the state home, so it is only fitting that it hosts the annual Holley LS Fest right in their hometown.

The event, centered around GM’s popular LS engine, welcomes any and all vehicles equipped with an LS engine (or late model LT), whether originally installed or installed as a modification to an existing vehicle. Traditionally taking place the weekend after Labor Day each year at Beech Bend Raceway Park, Holley had to expand this year to include NCM Motorsports Park to accommodate the growing demand.

The Holley LS Fest expanded last year to include a second event, LS Fest West, in Las Vegas. Both events continue to grow at breakneck speed, bringing in gearheads from all over the globe. This year was no exception for the original LS Fest (East), as some packages for the three-day event sold out to participants before the gates even opened. The amount of spectators quickly pushed attendance to the largest-ever event in the history of the storied Beech Bend Park.

There is plenty of action for spectators to watch and lots of vendors on-hand to help you with questions on your current project. If you happened to be lucky enough to have an LS-powered vehicle, you had plenty of package options to choose from, depending on where your interests lied including:

  • QA1 Autocross
  • Baer Brakes 3S Challenge (Speed, Stop, Steering)
  • Lucas Oil Drift Challenge
  • Hooker Headers Burnout competition
  • 12 Different Drag Racing Classes
  • Forgeline Road Course Challenge
  • The Tuning School Dyno Challenge
  • Brian Tooley Racing LS Engine Bolt-On Challenge
  • PSI Conversion Show-N-Shine Competition
  • American Powertrain Track X
  • Bowler Transmission’s Countryside Cruise/Digital Scavenger Hunt
  • A large vendor midway and much more!

We are all about turning left and right, which means we had plenty of autocross action with two autocross courses — one at Beech Bend, and the addition of NCM Motorsports Park parking lot. As an extra bonus for those who love some lateral forces, they even had the NCM road course open for participants to sample the track. There were so many participants, they broke the event up into two run groups. One group would run Beech Bend for the morning session and one would run NCM, then swap places after lunch.

With the remnants of Hurricane Gordon bearing down on Bowling Green, it was an eventful weekend weather-wise: Smoking hot, sunny, and humid on Friday; overcast and mild on Saturday; torrential downpours on Sunday (amazingly they still ran the 3S Challenge in the monsoon – check out our FB Live video)!

If you have an LS-powered vehicle, or are even thinking of owning one, LS Fest is the place to be to see the some of the biggest, baddest cars on the planet. Make plans to attend next year’s show the weekend after Labor Day, you won’t regret it! Enough talking, you want to see pictures! Check out these huge photo galleries and see what you missed!

Photo gallery

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About the author

Shawn Brereton

Shawn is a lifelong car enthusiast who appreciates all things automotive. He is the proud owner of a blown '55 Chevy, a daily-driven '66 Fairlane with an '09 GT500 drivetrain, and a '96 Miata track car.
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