Drag Racing History Video: St Louis International Raceway, and I-55 Raceway Full of 1970s Glory! Pro Stockers and More


Drag Racing History Video: St Louis International Raceway,  and I-55 Raceway Full of 1970s Glory! Pro Stockers and More

The NHRA Mello Yello drag racing series heads to St Louis, Missouri this weekend for the 2019 AAA Insurance Midwest Nationals. The St Louis area is one that’s filled with great drag racing history like many big cities in the Midwest are. The place has had a vibrant hot rodding scene since the dawn of the hobby and they’ve been drag racing around greater St Louis since the 1950s at various spots.

World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway is the spot that we’ll be at this weekend and the property we’ll be running on has been home to a couple of different strips over the years. Since opening in 1967 there have been national events of multiple associations there, it was the home of the legendary World Ford Challenge through the years and loads of other big events as well.

This video from the 1970s is magical because we not only see an earlier iteration of St Louis International Raceway but we also see I-55 Raceway as well. We also see scads of muscle cars, altereds, and a bunch of pro stockers from the formative years of the class’s history. The Vegas are growing on trees in this video and they range from early 1970s to middle 1970s models. You’ll see guys racing bone stock “new” cars like a Challenger that is shown repeatedly. You’ll also see plenty of killer sportsman style cars. Is there anything more bad ass than the chin scraping stance of early pro stockers?!

Keep your eyes peeled for a Road Runner with a 10.61 dial on the window and clearly a four speed. A 10-second car of that era was a real hustler!

This is a raw, fun, and neat look back at a couple days at the digs just prior to the dawn of disco. Sure, Detroit was peeling horsepower back but hot rodders weren’t!


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2 thoughts on “Drag Racing History Video: St Louis International Raceway, and I-55 Raceway Full of 1970s Glory! Pro Stockers and More

  1. 75Duster

    I use to race at I-55 back in the ’80’s, as well as crewed on a Sportsman oval track car before my US Navy career. Unfortunately, I-55 is now a mismanaged dirt oval track only.

  2. 200kss

    I-55 is/was 20 minutes from my house. Unfortunately the drag strip portion didn’t survive past the flood of ’93….couple years before I was of driving age.

    My earliest Gateway memory was the 1989 GM Nationals.

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