Lapeer International Dragway
ActiveActive Still racing today.
Lapeer International Dragway is a quarter-mile strip in the Thumb region outside Lapeer that was rebuilt in 2018 and joined the IHRA in 2019. It runs test-and-tune and street car events and hosts a Sick Michigan Miles stop.
- Art Arfons set a 288 mph strip mark in his 'Green Monster' jet in 1972
- Ed and Juli Vakula are in the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame
- Raced
- 1968-present
- State
- Michigan
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- July 4, 1968
- Track
- 1/4 mile
- Surface
- Concrete launch pad through the eighth-mile, asphalt beyond (after 2018 renovation)
- Location
- The Vakula family farm in Lapeer
- People
- Ed Vakula, co-founder, sole owner from 1989 (1968-)
- Mike Vakula, co-founder and co-owner (1968-1989)
- Ron Starking, proposed the strip
- Sanction
- IHRA
- Elevation
- 830 ft (253 m)
- Coordinates
- 43.10541, -83.28458
Big races
Sick Michigan Miles
Lapeer is a stop on this week-long drag-and-drive event for fast street-legal cars.
Saturday test and tune
Open test-and-tune sessions on Saturdays for street and race cars (from an older listing; may have changed).
Drop the Hammer - Midwest
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
Back to the Streets
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
Heads Up Hustle
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
History
Brothers Ed and Mike Vakula owned a meat market and a farm in Lapeer. Ron Starking, a teenager who worked at the market, pitched them on building a drag strip on the farm, and after some fights with the township for approval, they did. The strip is 60 feet wide and 4,000 feet long. It opened July 4, 1968 as a quarter-mile track under AHRA sanction, and Hot Rod listed it as NHRA-sanctioned in January 1969. Bracket racing has been the staple, with featured racers brought in to draw crowds, among them ‘The Michigan Madman’ E. J. ‘Parachute’ Potter, funny car driver Della Woods and Art Arfons, who set a strip mark of 288 mph in his ‘Green Monster’ jet dragster in 1972. Ed bought out Mike’s share in 1989 and is still the sole owner. Ed and his wife, Juli, are in the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame.
Video
More in Michigan
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