Lake Geneva Speed Center

This strip a mile south of Lake Geneva on Highway 12 at Bloomfield Road opened on July 4, 1963, before 600 spectators. A group of contractors who hadn’t been paid for building it ran the strip from then until it closed in 1977. Newspapers called it Lake Geneva Speed Center by May 31, 1964, and on June 28 that year Steve Krumm won Ultra Stock at 12.15 seconds and 120 MPH. In late July 1964 the track went to three days a week, racing Wednesday and Saturday nights and Sundays. On September 6, 1964, the “Green Monster” beat the “Bonneville Avenger” jet dragster in a match race with a best of 218 MPH. In 1966 a quarter-mile asphalt oval was built around the strip, so the drag strip ran straight through the middle of a paved oval. On June 18, 1967, Dennis Johnson, 22, of Illinois, was killed in time trials when his dragster hit a timing light, went out of control and flipped end over end.