Our Big In Texas series continues with a hard one to pin down, "The Biggest Drag Strip In The Lone Star State".

Here's Where We Begin

Your dad probably took to ball games or fishing. While we did a bit of the latter, my dad was all about the drag strip. These were the days when the names of the drivers were thrown around like rock stars and the races were hyped like WWE matches. I saw the greats, "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney, and the rivalry between Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen. I was able to witness real drag racing history in real time.

The Thrill Of The Drag Strip

I must say that I cannot watch cars race around a track. I was trained that 1/4 mile was all it took to prove a car and a driver. I'm sure many of those elements are present in track racing, but does not compare (for me anyways) to the instant gratification of the dragsters and funny cars.

So How Do You Judge Biggest In Texas?

A drag strip is essentially a quarter mile. So how do you proclaim that one quarter-mile track is "bigger" than the other? That is why I set you up with my own stories about the tracks. You have to look at all of the things around it, the spectators, the events, the pageantry, and the passion celebrating the sport around the quarter mile.

And The Winner Is...

The Texas Motorplex in Ennis Texas, 40 miles south of Dallas appears to do the best job of celebrating drag racing the way I remember it. Built by a former funny car driver, it is a bit of a 'dream home" for racers and according to Wikipedia "the first all-concrete stadium-style drag racing facility ever constructed". Their listing of events for 2024 is already over-the-top in the nitro-sniffing way I expect drag-racing to be presented. If I have you hyped for a racing weekend, you may want to head over to their website, since many of those events are on sale now.