Drag Racing Online - "Martin Chronicles"

ATM TIME: Adios Texas Motorplex

I'm getting ready to attend what will probably be my last drag race this year, the O'Reilly Fall Nationals at Billy Meyer's fabled Texas Motorplex. The word "last" is especially meaningful here because from all that I hear, this will indeed be the last go-round at what I consider very likely the best drag strip I've ever sat my butt in. Meyer, according to many, is, how do they say it now, "over with drag racing" and is moving to other adventures in the wonderful world of corporate capitalism. What this means, according to reliable sources is that Meyer intends to sell the track after the event, with the new owner free to do whatever he feels like with the place.

To this day, no drag palace ever made a greater debut than the Motorplex did at the 1986 Chief Nationals. Out of the cradle, it was THE performance track of the world. The first 5.2-second time, a 5.28 by Darrell Gwynn, the first 5.4-second Funny Car time, an astronomical 5.42 by Kenny Bernstein, and on the record list went through the years. Meyer's all-concrete race surface, not to mention the groundbreaking hexagonal sponsor suites behind the starting line, rendered all tracks of the time null and void. It was for so long drag racing's major league venue. It only took me a couple of races before I could say without flinching, I'd rather be at the Chief Nationals than the U.S. Nationals. The Texas Motorplex was the perfect setting for any gunfight at the O.K. Corral. You got a fast car, say it'll run 4.5s on a good surface, well podnah, step up to the plate, your ship has come in. The surf was always up at the Motorplex.

From that weekend to this coming one, I've missed only two Motorplex national events, the 1999 and 2000 spring races; everything else I saw. I won't wear you out by categorizing "my favorite races," "my favorite performances" and all that jazz, but instead write that I'm sorry as hell that this historic drag racing site will be the site of swap meets, flea markets or other similar horrors next year.

It's been said to me that Meyer himself will not attend this race due to reported beefs with NHRA management. The way the situation was portrayed to me, NHRA this year represents some unscheduled in-laws who dropped by and rather than hassle with the bastards, Billy has elected to pass on the whole deal.

What are you gonna do?

In my case, I plan to get in the grandstands and enjoy every single pass I can before the wrecking ball shows. I can't think of too many things auto-racing-wise that I enjoy more than an all-out Motorplex qualifying session or eliminations. In fact, when I get to hell, the one thing I'd like to do is sit with a lot of my Texas outlaw friends at the pitside 1000-foot mark and go nuts over one world record time after another. And there were many times at the track where that kind of performance evolved.

The Texas Motorplex is the modern era's Lions Dragstrip, Fremont Raceway, Ontario, U.S. 30 in Gary, and Orange County. Its place in drag racing history as one of the premier facilities of all-time is assured.

I don't want to make the place sound like heaven or Meyer as its guardian angel, because there were a few zits on the face here and there, although not that many.

For example, the purchasing of coupons to get food and beverages at the track in the mid-1990s frosted my ass. A guy not wanting to add up to the penny what food cost just picks a round number, buys those tickets, and finds he's got two or three dollars worth in his pocket when he gets home. It's an old hustle and was straight carny barker through and through.

There were mini-hassles now and again, but Meyer and his staff were always great to me and that includes the 1988 season when Meyer tried his hand at running a sanctioning body and went IHRA. When Eddie Hill ran the sport's first four (a 4.99 at the 1988 IHRA Texas Nationals in April) I was in the employ of the National Hot Rod Association. IHRA had beaten NHRA to the sport's first four and I expected some pressure to jam it into the pages of National DRAGSTER. When I saw the run, I wanted it in DRAGSTER, too, but I was also aware that NHRA had an unspoken policy of ignoring anything that might be deemed untoward. To Meyer's credit, I didn't experience an ounce of pressure from his side of the fence.

He did say that he knew I was NHRA, but he felt that it was very newsworthy nonetheless and at least deserved a small mention. And that was it. Yours truly succumbed to internal NHRA pressure, though, and mentioned that Eddie Hill did indeed run a 4.99 at the IHRA Texas Nationals "at a small track outside of Dallas" (They didn't want the Motorplex mentioned beause Meyer had jumped ship from NHRA sanction).

A month later, I received a T-shirt from the Texas Motorplex, hailing Hill's 4.99 at the Texas Motorplex, "a small track outside of Dallas." I couldn't have been more tickled or impressed with the class with which they handled the situation.

Well, all good things must come to end, sooner or later, and I'm led to believe this is it. Texas still has a great dragstrip in Houston Raceway Park, but it just isn't the all-concrete quarter-mile in Ennis. In fact, nothing will be. Someone may go with an all-concrete track and get an NHRA or IHRA national event and the records may fall again, but, for me, the original is still the greatest.

If indeed, this is goodbye (and I sure would love to see an 11th hour reprieve as far as this is concerned), I just want to say to the Meyer clan and the Motorplex staff, "It was my privilege and it was certainly was fun while it lasted."

For a fleshing out of why I've waxed elegantly about the Texas Motorplex, hit the "Archive" button on the Table of Contents and go to Volume I, Number 2, the October 1999 issue, and it will give you a detailed history of the track.

photo by Jeff Burk