Bonneville Raceway/Rocky Mountain Raceway (Magna)

Dick Godfrey, manager of Bonneville Raceway, was a major stockholder in a group with Bob Gee, Jim Campbell and the Howard Haynes family, the majority owner, that bought a 60-acre site northeast of Magna in 1966. Work on a motorcycle track began in June 1966, and the plan was to have the drag strip ready by spring 1967 so racing could move from the Bonneville Drag Strip a few miles west at 6600 West 2100 South. The group spent $250,000 on the complex, which included a half-mile stock car oval and a 1.8-mile motorcycle and sports car road course. Weather and money problems pushed back the opening.

The first drag race was held on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, July 23-24, 1968, on an NHRA-sanctioned strip paved for almost 3,000 feet, with Bob Gee as manager. Five thousand fans saw Harry Allen win in the KCPX “Want Bird” over Dan and Dave Johnson. Another 5,000 came on Saturday, July 27, to see Bob Riggles run his “Hemi-Under-Glass” wheelstander. The first NHRA divisional race, August 17-18, 1968, was rained on and the finals moved to Monday night, when 5,000 people saw Tommy Larkin beat Allen in top fuel. Late on Saturday, August 31, 1968, Larry Rees, 30, was killed racing his “Intergrater” AA/FD. A clash between 75 police in riot gear and rock-throwing fans lasted two hours on May 28, 1968.

Local top fuel racers in the 1970s and 1980s included Al Pehrson, Rex Pearmain, Jack Harris, Paul Schoenfeld, Mike Reynolds and Dan Richins. Don Prudhomme set the funny car record of 7.21 seconds at 204 MPH on May 1, 1971. Bob Ipson leased the track from the Haynes family in late 1973 and put more than $600,000 into it over fourteen years before stepping away after 1986. Don Garlits made his first Utah appearance on June 5, 1974, and lost a best-of-three match to Dan Richins’s “Iron Horse.” Godfrey took over the lease after Ipson. Spencer Young bought the track in 1995, and the Young Automotive Group ran it until it sold the property to Freeport West in 2014. A five-year lease kept racing going through 2018, after which the track was torn down for commercial development.