Today Drag Week heads to one of the country’s finest drag strips, the Texas Motorplex. There’s been lots of modern drag racing history made at this track and many of us are salivating at the potential madness that could happen today. The Texas Motorplex was the world’s first all concrete drag strip when it was built in 1986. It is a track that literally set the modern standard for “big league” drag plants across the country. At 500 feet above sea level and enveloped in dry Texas air, there’s horsepower to be had in Ennis.
The track was the vision of Billy Meyer, the famed professional drag racer that burst on to the scene as a literal teenager in the 1970s and rose to become one of the most famous and successful drag racers of all time. Meyer wanted to build a true “super track” befitting of drag racing’s status in the motorsports landscape of the USA. NASCAR had their big ovals and he wanted to prove that drag racing was worthy of their palaces as well. he succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. From the then revolutionary “wrap around” style timing tower, to modern innovations like the catch net systems used a the end of today’s strips, the Texas Motorplex has been on the forefront of drag racing trends, technology, and performance.
The most famous moment in Motorplex history came in 1988 when Eddie Hill (at an IHRA race!) made the first ever four second pass in a Top Fuel Dragster. It was drag racing’s last huge performance barrier related to elapsed time and the amazingly grippy concrete surface allowed it to be possible.
For the reasons stated above, we here at BS believe that we will see the quickest and fastest Drag Week passes of all time today several times over. The track at Tulsa is a fantastic place, and stuck like velcro, but the ‘Plex has some serious history and a knack for magic. Stay tuned….we’re going to see history happen today.
Todays mistake……
I went to work instead of calling in sick and heading north!
Wow, an Aussie Charger made it there!! Good stuff!!
nice to see an old Valiant Charger there, still right hand drive too.