Drag racing has been around almost since cars were invented.  For generations young boys have souped up their “hot rods” and challenged each other to tests of speed and courage from country roads to dry river beds.

By the 1950s, drag racing started to become more organized, largely due to the efforts of the American Hot Rod Association which was formed in 1956.  Dirt fields sprouted bleachers and concession stands, and then beautiful paved tracks with safety fences and elaborate pit areas. Drag racing became big business.

Being a racing-crazed state, Indiana was not immune to this, and so a famous track was open by 1957, perhaps as early as 1954, in what is now Hobart, Indiana, just east of I-65 on the north side of US 30.  Closed in 1984, the US 30 Drag Strip was top entertainment for scores of Northwest Indiana and Chicago residents, but now sits overgrown and broken down.

Truly the great ones did run here - every major racer in the sport ran down the strip, including “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, Don “The Shoe” Schumacher, and Chris “The Greek” Karamesines. Three generations of kids were permanently hooked on the sport by visiting the event just once. It was really a social gathering - not only were fans there to watch, but often to be seen in their own creations, worked on in garages and on driveways all week to make them ready for the “big show”.

The track was also the site of several major “firsts”. Ron Pellegrini claims to have run the very first “funny car” on the third weekend of May in 1965 at the US 30 Drag Strip. This style car, popular to this day, is characterized by a metal tube frame with a fiberglass body that can prop up or lift off the car entirely.  Innovations continued, including replacing carburetors with fuel injection systems, replacing gasoline with nitro-methane, and the addition of turbochargers.  Each year seemed to bring out new thrills as drag racing pushed the envelope of automotive innovation.

The twin paved strips run East-West in parallel to US 30 itself. Clay Street runs North-South along the East side of the property - the end nearest the street is where the starting line once was.  The gigantic “pit” area was to the south of the track, and gravel parking lots for the fans were to the north.  A small building stood at the head of the track east of the starting line, and a tall scoring and timing tower - painted orange for most of its life - stood at the starting line along its south edge.

Today only one building remains - a small overgrown white wooden shack once known as the “Goodie Booth”, run by Mrs. Julie “Ma” Wright, who’s home was across Clay street from the pit entrance. The only other standing structures are some light/speaker poles dotting the landscape and a large broken-down set of bleachers which have been moved from their original location at some point in time.

Large telephone poles block the obvious entrance to the facility behind the starting line, probably to discourage kids from using the track clandestinely for its original purpose. However, there is a way to enter the track grounds from what once was the pit area, as someone living in an old trailer now makes his home in the parking lot. Recently-worn ruts leading from the pit lot onto the track area indicate that the owners of the land may not have been as successful at keeping people out as they hoped.

The track itself is hardly visible from the road due to the overgrown brush, but if one walks only a few feet onto the property from the east a vast unbroken stretch of pavement is clear in front of you. Though the starting lights are long gone, the actual starting line is still faintly visible, and upon closer inspection, the concrete is marked with long streaks that give away the hundreds of cars that were once launched from this point.

The Goodie Booth is missing its only door, and the inside is empty except for wooden shelves that line the far wall.

The US 30 would meet its end in a rather unique way. The fiery Jim Tice had guided the AHRA from 1959 until his untimely death in 1982 from cancer.  Ownership of the sanctioning body went to his wife, Ruth, and a battle for control of the circuit began. In the middle of the 1984 racing season, Ruth was approached by the owner of Terminal Van Lines, Mike Grey.  Mike offered to bankroll the circuit awards, and, wishing to ensure her future, Ruth sold. Stunned by the development, several track owners, including the US 30, split off to form the American Drag Racing Association (ADRA), and events were held at the facility for the rest of 1984 under that banner.

Unfortunately, the south was slow to recover from the economic recession of the early 1980s, and drag racing proved not to be as popular with the rural residents around the track as with northern audiences. The day after a sparsely-attended finals were held, the track owner disappeared with out a trace, and the checks for the employees and racers started to bounce. Mike Grey covered the majority of the checks with his own personal funds, but quickly sold the AHRA name to return to the moving business.  That would prove to be the final AHRA race.

Without a strong national sanctioning body, the US 30 would struggle for the remainder of the 1984 season.  The operators of the track attempted to renegotiate their lease on the land but were not successful - the land owner saw the potential for a large residential development, and was eager to make it available to a developer.  The track closed at the end of that season, never to reopen. Vandals and time would claim most the buildings and pavement, so now only the faintest marks of what once was are still visible.

The city of Hobart annexed the land and surrounding area in 1994, hoping to continue to cash in on tax revenues from the expanding commercial center around Southlake Mall. A group proposed to reopen it as a drag strip that same year, but that was turned down.  The land is now for sale as a commercial or residential site - as it has been for over 16 years. One day soon this little piece of history may be turned into a factory, a warehouse or more shopping, removing from the land another bit of Lost Indiana.

Home of the reborn AHRA

The premier drag racing sanctioning body

Home of the 500th NHRA event - the 2001 US Nationals -

over the weekend of August 31st - September 2nd, 2001.

It was also the 50th anniversary of the NHRA and saw

the return of “Big Daddy” Don Garlits to his first race

since 1986.

Related books from

Bobby Kerr was still alive and well in the fall of 2002:

By April of 2009, though, the trailer was still there, no sign of Bobby:

This is an actual recording of a US30 Drag Strip commercial from the Larry Lujack show on Chicago’s WLS-89 radio.  At 5:05 PM on Monday, October 5th, 1970, Larry exits a Supremes song into the ad for Wednesday, October 7th’s race.  Listen for the admission price, and for a badly dated Budweiser commercial that followed.  Clip courtesy of the Reel Top 40 Radio Repository.

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