Greater Peoria Dragstrip/Boondocks Dragway

The Heart of Illinois Hot Rod Club built and ran this dirt strip, which opened in 1957 as Greater Peoria Dragstrip. It was paved in 1958, and the eighth-mile strip was widened in 1969. It had 550 feet of paved shutdown with another 1,500 feet of leveled dirt beyond. A man who raced there in the 1960s remembered the shutdown as a downhill run with only 200 or 300 feet of asphalt before the dirt and a steeper drop. At the end the road turned hard right, and missing the turn meant a deep ditch with a bank on the far side. That was changed after a few hard crashes. He said the entrance back then was off SR-116 a mile west of the SR-8 junction: two miles south, then right for half to three-quarters of a mile, with the strip on the left an eighth of a mile in or less. Bill Knus, Bud Christner and Carl Hand owned the strip in 1971, and it became Boondocks Dragway in 1972.