Hood 2 Hood Racing: What’s In A Name

The Ethan Williams story and how a quiet Dallas racer built a family that races together, prays together, eats together, and shows up for each other, twelve years and counting.

When you talk to Ethan Williams, racing doesn’t just sound like a sport. It sounds like a place to belong. He’ll tell you it was in his blood long before he knew the details. His father raced, though the two weren’t close when Ethan was young. He fell for the track on his own terms, week after week, long before the reunion. Then, later in life, father and son found each other again and discovered they’d been carrying the same fire all along. “Once me and my dad reconnected, it just clicked,” Ethan says. “We realized we had the same passion, the same love for racing. From there, we got closer and closer, right up until he passed.”

That sense of inheritance something you feel before you can name it shaped how Ethan thinks about community. In the early days, it bothered him that racing had a weekly heartbeat but a six day silence. Sunday under the lights, and then nothing until the next Sunday. He wanted a way to keep the conversation alive: a place to check on each other midweek, line up a lock-in, swap parts, pray for somebody’s mom, find a missing axle, start a rivalry, end a beef. He wanted, simply, to keep people connected.

That idea turned into a name.

Watching Dallas roll in by neighborhoods: West Dallas, North Dallas, East Dallas, South Dallas, Oak Cliff… Ethan noticed the way hometowns traveled with racers. Crews parked by crews. School buddies found each other at the fence. “Everybody’s coming from different places, but here they are, together,” he says. He wanted a banner that honored that reality without dividing it. He called it Hood 2 Hood Racing.

At first, he worried the name would scare people off. Hood can be misunderstood: some hear a stereotype, not a neighborhood. So, Ethan wrote a mission statement to explain what the name really meant.

Hood 2 Hood Racing’s mission is to reach racers of all ethnicities and racing styles; it creates a diverse and inclusive racing environment that is open to all categories of racing. H2HR is a platform where the world can enjoy head-to-head drag racing in different cities, states and countries. The purpose of the organization is to highlight all racers. Everyone is welcomed in the HOOD!

The phrase carried three meanings at once. First, “hood-to-hood” echoed “head-to-head” racing. Second, it literally pointed to “what’s under your hood” the work, the build, the engine. And third, it spoke to what’s beneath the surface as a person: your character, your drive, what fuels you beyond the car. All three ideas stack together, turning the name into a symbol of unity through competition.

Before the group, the scene already had camaraderie, but it was segmented. One camp over here, another over there, and not much crosstalk. Hood 2 Hood Racing changed the wiring. It gave people a reason to meet in the middle, a common table to eat at, a public square to argue in, and a backyard to celebrate. “Even though they were still competitive, some of them started turning into family,” Ethan says. “Racing became my baby,” he says. “Every picnic feels like a family reunion.”

The group launched in November 2013, and by the following year Ethan wanted to turn the online energy into a real-life gathering. “We tried to have our first picnic in 2014, but the weather promptly tested the vision,” he recalled. It poured rain. Ethan had already bought and prepared all the food and didn’t want it to go to waste. He called Mr. Danny at Cedar Creek Dragway and asked if they could at least meet under the pavilion.

“We couldn’t race, but we weren’t going to waste what we’d prepared,” Ethan said. So, they gathered anyway ate together, swapped stories, shook hands, and made plans.

By 2016, a clear Sunday finally arrived, and the picnic itself hit its stride but even apart from the picnic, the online group was exploding. Membership kept climbing, and what began as a small communication hub now powered a statewide racing network. It still felt both new and inevitable at the same time: call-outs firing in the comments, lock-ins sealed with handshakes, pop-up shootouts, and local tracks buoyed by a crowd that finally had its own coordination center.

What once took three phone calls or a friend-of a friend connection could now happen with a single post. Need a part by Friday? Need a rival by Saturday? Need a prayer today? Post it to the group 33,000 eyes might see it before nightfall.

The group’s impact showed up in ways that had nothing to do with time slips.

Randy Willis noticed noticed his neighbors roof collapsing; John Herring who owns Star 1 Roofing and Contracting stepped up and donated the roof, keeping the city from condemning the home. Over multiple holidays, racers gathered clothes and food and spent Thanksgiving or Christmas serving meals downtown ministering, listening, handing out jackets that may have smelled faintly of race fuel and fresh laundry. In Oak Cliff, a woman’s porch rotted but Brandon Weddle with NexLevel Roofing and Outdoor Living demolished the old one and built a new one from the ground up.

There were quiet collections for racers in hospital rooms; parts runs for cars wrecked in testing; GoFundMe’s shared, debts forgiven, beefs put down. “That’s always what I liked the most,” Ethan says. “It helped people.”

He tried to make it generational, too. Hood-2-Books offered kids rewards for pages read, with book-drive discounts at race entries and plans to donate those books back to inner-city schools. The program launched right before COVID and got interrupted, but he’s not done with it. “I’m bringing it back,” he says. “Reading earns a trip to the track.”

If the picnic is the family reunion, the classes are the family talent show…everybody gets a lane. Ethan builds the card to reflect the group: 7.0 index cars, junior dragsters, small tire, big rim, JV and a fast-growing Power Wheels class for the kids that is, frankly, more serious than adults expect.

“Those kids, man they’re about it,” he laughs.

The philosophy is simple: no one should feel like they don’t belong. “I don’t want somebody thinking their car ain’t fast enough, so they can’t come,” Ethan says. “I try to make sure there’s something for everybody. That’s the group.” That inclusivity isn’t always the easiest way to run a program tight schedules don’t love extra classes but it’s the honest reflection of who Hood 2 Hood Racing is.

Fans see race day but they don’t see the giant chart that lives in Ethan’s head. Lanes to assign. Call-outs to slot. Classes to pace so the show doesn’t bottleneck. The free food window 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. to plan and serve on time while staying inside the track’s rules. The personalities to manage when engines won’t idle and the tempers to cool when a heat index hits triple digits.

The nights run late. “One year I lined up cars, sat down in the pits Indian-style, and fell asleep,” he laughs. “By the end of the night, I’m gone.” Fridays can run to four in the morning; Saturdays, sometimes six or seven.

Ask him how he planned this whole thing and he’ll shrug. “A lot of people set goals, make game plans, action plans,” he says. “I didn’t do none of it. I think that’s why it’s so successful. It’s genuine. You bless others, and God blesses you in return.” He’s not the archetype of the social-media promoter: no taste for politics, no hunger for the spotlight. He calls himself quiet. He prefers the work. He believes there’s purpose in it. “God has a purpose for me,” he says. “I think it’s bringing people together.”

Sponsorship is part of the work, and it’s not as glamorous as it looks from the stands. The group isn’t monetized: Hood 2 Hood Racing started back in 2013, before platforms flipped the switches and a lot of what people assume is “easy money” is just a promoter juggling receipts. Over the years, local partners and friends have shouldered the picnic. There are levels for anyone who wants in because not everyone has ten grand lying around. “There’s a way to be involved,” he says.

There have been doors closed, too. Ethan talks plainly about sending professional proposals to big-name brands, following the playbook, and still getting dismissed on stereotype alone. Ethan says, not angry just tired. “People don’t see the charity work, the community support, the way grassroots racing keeps tracks alive every weekend.” He pauses. “I don’t play politics. I’ve never been that person to sit at the big lunch table. Sometimes that gets you overlooked. People say, ‘Why him?’ I just keep going.”

If you want to understand what he means by keeping tracks alive, look at the Sunday faithful cars. They may be a little rough around the edges but they set their gate money aside like a light bill, week after week. Big events come and go. The grassroots racers keep the gates swinging. “They’re the backbone,” Ethan says. “They’re the reason these places still open on the weekend.” His mouth twists into a half-grin. “That passion gets me in trouble sometimes. I don’t know how to play the game. I don’t care to. If I can do it, I’ll do it. If I can’t, I can’t. But I’ll be honest about it.”

Honesty is also his first rule for promoters. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver especially payouts. “That’s the curse,” he says. “Racers break parts, drive an hour to the parts store, spend their last dollar getting back in the lanes. At the end, what you promised better be there.” Be straight about the classes. Be straight about the schedule. If you mess up, own it. The culture is more honorable than outsiders think. “In grudge racing, you lock something in on a handshake, 95% of the time people stick to it,” he says. “You’ll always hear the 5% stories. But the truth is better than the rumor.”

Twelve years in, the truth is that Hood 2 Hood Racing has outgrown its founder’s comfort with the spotlight. What started with ten friends posting jokes and videos snowballed into a statewide commons that helped more than a few promoters and businesses find their first audiences, even if not all of them remember to give credit. Ethan doesn’t keep score. He only asks for decency. “A lot of people don’t want money or recognition,” he says. “They just want to be appreciated. A simple ‘thank you’ goes a long way. I tell my kids that. If somebody helps you, say thank you.”

Ask Ethan what he wants people to remember about him and he doesn’t talk about a flyer, or a gate count, or a win light. He talks about tone. “I just want people to say I helped set how we could be together as one,” he says. “Even if we don’t always like each other, we can still figure it out. I want to be remembered as a good person who did what he could, the right way, with what he had.”

The picnic ends late. The trash gets hauled. The pavilion goes quiet. On Monday morning, the group lights back up because somebody needs a part, someone found a phone in the stands, somebody’s aunt needs a prayer, or someone wants to lock in. That’s the point. From hood to hood, and hood to heart, the engine keeps turning.

Interested in sponsoring Hood 2 Hood Racing?

There are multiple entry points, including class sponsorships as well as lower entry points to just help support the event. Local shops, regional brands, national partners and individuals are welcome. If your goal is to support the community that keeps Texas tracks alive week after week, there’s a lane for you.For more information, reach out to Ethan Williams on Facebook.

Written by Milissa Martini