Brainerd International Raceway

History

George Montgomery started building a three-mile road course called Donnybrooke in 1967, six miles north of Brainerd on Highway 371. Its 60-foot-wide, 4,000-foot straightaway served as the drag strip. It opened as Donnybrooke International Speedway under NHRA sanction, and records show drag racing began in 1968. The grand opening, July 6-7, 1968, drew 197 racers, with 5,000 people on the final day, and Bill Schifsky had top speed at 7.55 and 207.36 mph in his AA/FD. Drags ran almost weekly the rest of 1968, and from 1969 the track switched to a smaller schedule of major events. Montgomery filed bankruptcy and no races ran in 1973. Race driver Jerry Hansen bought it in 1974 and renamed it Brainerd International Raceway, and two drag events ran in 1975.

The track’s own history says road racing came first for about a decade, with drag racing growing over time. In 1977 BIR hosted the Crown Auto Funny Car Championship and the Crown Auto Winston Points Championship. Don Prudhomme won the first Funny Car title, Tom Hoover beat him the next year, and by the third year the event drew 22,000 fans. Through the 1980s the track added grandstands, VIP suites and a concessions arcade. When the Met Stadium in Bloomington was torn down in 1982, BIR took its bleachers for the new Quaker State NorthStar Nationals. More than 50,000 fans came to the first one and saw Shirley Muldowney win Top Fuel and Mark Oswald set a world speed record of 256.41 mph in his Top Fuel dragster. Early winners also included Kenny Bernstein, John Force, Jim Head and Joe Amato, NHRA’s winningest Top Fueler, who won there in 1983, 1984, 1988 and 1989. The event became the NHRA Nationals, the biggest annual sporting event in the Upper Midwest, drawing over 100,000 people a weekend. It’s the only NHRA track with on-site camping, an area known as The Zoo.