Founded in 1999, Southern Speed is the result of Wade Hopkins’ lifelong obsession with speed. From racing go-karts as a teenager to competing in SCCA events and modifying his early Fox-body Mustangs, Wade turned his hands-on experience into a full-scale drag racing business.

What started in his dad’s masonry shop became one of the country’s most trusted and most respected drag racing performance shops.

In 2006, Wade and his wife Tina expanded into a new facility in Tupelo, Mississippi, and installed an in-ground Mustang dynamometer. After retiring from the Tupelo Fire Department in 2017, Wade committed to Southern Speed full-time and now splits his time between the shop and tuning customer cars at the dragstrip.

Today, our tight-knit team — Wade, Tina, Wesley, and Garret — serves racers nationwide. We may be a small, family-run shop, but our cars run with the best of them!