I've seen plenty of indoor racing- Tractor pulls, motocross, etc. Why not? The length of the strip is one good reason- the Chicago info stated the strip was only 400 ft. That's less than a third of a 1,320-foot quarter-mile. Given the right location, I beleive many convention centers/sports stadiums could be done. They'd have to run outside to shut down, though. That'd be dicey at speed- aiming for a hole in the wall...especially if things were a little edgy on any particular pass. Maybe an eighth mile could be laid out in some places. That'd be plenty to have some fun. Cars are much faster than they used to be. Everything is better now. It'd be fun to watch and race indoors- no question. Whether it'd be feasible (safety, insurance, economics) is the big question. I'd bet there'd be several venues willing to give it a shot, if the money was right. ~Scotch~
Awesome stuff ... 8) We definitly *need* something like that overhere in the Netherlands... With only 3 dragraces a year on a 2hr away dead simple airstrip, we can't afford to have any rainouts what so ever to spoil our fun... :/
I went to one of the inside drags in Chicago. It was WILD!! I saw a couple of cars hit those big support posts. When they let off of the accelerator while in gear the car would go a little sideways and BANG the post. Scary and LOUD!! One Sunday while working downtown I looked out the window and below on the top story of a parking garage there were a couple of guys dragging that short distance. They would turn around and do it again and again. Not much speed, but must have enjoyed it just to say they had done it. Ol Blue
I swiper these two responses from Nitroland, hope ya dig 'em. NAME: Tired of this IP ADDRESS 217.160.226.12 DATE: - Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 14:00:29 (EST) I also was at the amphitheater back in Chicago in the 60's. I ran my '34 in there and that was only because it was a street driven car. Sure got loud though. Saw one crash involving a Dodge. Ended up with one, nice square bash into the side from a pillar post. It was a very short track, but it was a place to go in the winter to make some runs. Still have no clue who made that happen. How they got the use of the building, etc. Art ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUBJECT: Indoor drags - Chicago DATE: - Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 13:36:45 (EST) I was following another tale on another board about the Indoor Drags in Chicago. Anyone got coroboration for that one. I mean, I KNOW it's true, but were any of ya'll there? I saw pics of SS cars, were any FUEL cars in on that? Been there watched that. It was in the early 60s and usually wintertime in Chicago. The indoor drags we attended were at the International Amphitheater near the stock yards on the south side. Believe the track was 1/10 mile and was for street driven cars only. Track surface was sealed concrete and passed through two large garage doors. Shut down area was pretty short. Cars had to be cleaned of any residual snow and had to be dried off before coming to the staging area. This was done in a separate room. It could get pretty exciting when two big hp cars had to thread their way through those two garage doors. Never saw any type of "dedicated" race cars though Probably to slippery and to short. Never saw any crashes, but lots of close calls. More if any appear there. chili
I was at Ft Wayne in december watched Tony Stewert set the second indoor track record friday evening (he set the first thursday)and take the lead of the a main 7 laps in and didnt look back.. Cool shit. and they sell beer........ Dave
Nice slippery concrete floors, nice stout reinforced concrete pillars. Just makes my teeth come together real hard. This was truly a crazy scheme.
THAT is cool. I saw an exhibition at the "Monster Truck" show at municipal auditorium a few years back. They had some kind of Jet car jump a number of cars and when it landed it had to make a sharp 90 degree turn at the bottom of the ramp and head out into the lobby.
Toronto used to have an indoor tractor pull too. I remember Gene Snows funny car engine was sold to a puller and he brought it to TO for the pull running it on methonal rather than nitro. Was't too bad at warm up. liveable off the line but when he got it sticking good enough to give er it was absolutely "unbelievickable" The chevy guys were holding their chests and their ears and the lamps in the ceiling were swaying dangerously. Even now 30 plus years later I sometimes wake up thinking about it. West Edmonton Mall the worlds largest shopping mall would be a great place! Shut down and return road would all be inside and you could wave at the "babes" at the wave pool on the way by. Don
Plainfield Connecticut? Is that still in the works? I thought it got axed? Chili Phil - are you over at Franks nitro lounge? I have to keep that place going all by myself! -85% Jimmy
Man Im so glad this popped up!! How cool, could you imagine 200+Mph through a garage door?? Mind bending.....
The White Station Wagon is Arnie "The Farmer" Beswick's 1963 Pontiac Tempest the "Grocery Getter". The Dark Blue '61 Ventura is Andy Perry, he was on Arnie's race crew in the early 60's. This was Arnie's old car and Andy was second owner of the car. In 1965 5 guys from the Forreston area bought the car. A friend of ours Allan Ranz was one of those 5 and eventually bought the other 4 out. He owned the car up til '98 when we sold it. In '96 he restored it to the way it looked when Arnie Raced it in '61. We got the opportunity to work on the restoration. It is something will never forget.
Thanks for this post! Rumor of indoor drag racing in Chicago made it all the way to the frozen wastelands of Minnesota. I've always wondered if it was true. Now I know.
This is a photocopy of a hand-written time sheet from the indoor drags. The second entry is "Shake, Rattle and Run", the B/Gas '57 Chevy that's running the Henry J in the photo at the beginning of this thread.
Back in the 70's Mickey Thomson had a deal with dragsters racing indoors with a bunge cord connected to the back for shut down. It never went anywhere, but I saw a cool video of it.
I haven't heard any recient news on the race complex that is/was proposed for Plainfield as far as I know it is still possible.There is a lot of controversey over it but the guy planning on building it has bought a big bunch of land in the proposed build site.I'll keep you updated if I hear any more about it
that 63 Dodge may well be mine...it was white with blue interior and was a real MaxWedge 426 stage II with a 3 spd on the floor...was only beaten once by a 64 Dodge 4dr factory 426 HEMI 4spd...I believe only 14 of those were built and one resides at Garlets 's museum...the 63 is now red and is chassied/back halved as it was always a race car since the day it was picked up from Grand Spaulding Dodge(Mr Norm's) ...thanks for the pic... the 63's name was and still is "TAMELESS"
HELL YEAH!!!!! makes sense.they let them bigass monster trucks rip it up inside...........can inside H.A.M.B. drags be far behind
the monster trucks are loud!!!and they might go 100 feet at the starbird show..wonder if they would have to pour coke syrup on the track like they do at the chilli bowl???????
Guys, Not only was there Drag racing and Midget Racing in the Chicago International Amphitheater. In 1958, one time only, there was the "Indoor Grand Prix for Sports Cars ", on a Road Course ! I was there as a High School Punk and was totally amazed at seeing a variety of sports cars including a Ferrari Monza and the famous Thunderbird, the "BattleBird". (It wheel-hopped on every turn under braking and finally dropped its driveshaft right in front of me !) Here is a paragraph by the late Don Radbruch from the Yahoo Racing History Forum when I raised this subject in a thread there : " I did some checking on the online newspaper files---this includes the Chicago Tribune. The Indoor Grand Prix for Sports Cars was held on March 8, 1958. The whole thing sounds like a big deal--they also had open competition midget races and a rod and custom show. The pre-race publicity wasn't much---mostly small ads in the Tribune and other Chicago area newspapers. The only post race publcity was a short note stating that Loyal Katskee of Omaha won the Indoor Grand Prix in a Ferrari Monza. He led from start to finish and averaged 73.08 mph. This sort of thing indoors with places in the track only one car wide sounds wild. Don Radbruch Sagle, Idaho " I have never been able to find the Tribune article online, but would like to some day. Tom
I know its not indoors...but there is this place in Dallas that is scary.....the stands are litterally right next to the lanes on either side....its called YelloBelly Drag Strip....its gone down hill and pretty ghetto...but man...you want to shit yourself from the stands you have to watch some of the outlaw 10.5 guys getting it on and getting squirly there... Here is a video of how crazy this place is... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Euap_jz4emw&feature=related
We raced there too . Had a '63 blue Ford pickup truck with HERBO on the sidedoors . Anyone have pic of the truck ? That same truck pushed the midgets around when they raced there .
They used to truck in dirt into the Silverdome and have truck/tractor pulling inside and at one time there was a late model oval track show there with all of the best midwest drivers. Talk about a spectacle. Halfway through the race the smoke and fumes overpowered the exhaust system and you could barely see the far side of the track. Frank
We have indoor dirt races here once a year in the winter. The noise isn't too bad since they are mufflered up (you can hear them about a half mile away) but the fumes from the methanol get terrible about an hour into the races. On a side note, I used to work in a building that was 7/8 of a mile long, 3/9's of a mile wide, & 4 stories tall. I used to daydream about racing indoors there
Well, if you're gunna post on a 4 year old thread, it's nice to add some cool pics to it. Of all the cars to bite the the straw bails... it had to be 32 3W ?? Rich
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