Rocket City Dragway (Toney)

History

The Coachmen car club formed in Huntsville in the fall of 1958 and in spring 1959 advertised for land to lease or buy for a drag strip. On April 6, 1959, the Madison Board of County Commissioners discussed racing on an old road near the state boat dock and pledged to help find a place. That land proved too wet, so the board talked about closing part of Wynn Jones Road in northwest Huntsville for Sunday races. Nothing more happened until March 4, 1960, when the Coachmen proposed racing on a road the commissioners planned to build between Indian Creek School and the Ardmore Highway, open to the public except on Sundays. The board agreed two weeks later, but the club didn’t want to wait for the road. They asked instead whether the county would pave land owned by a member of the Rocket City Racing Association. None of these talks seem to have led anywhere.

In April 1961, J. Richard Stocks started building a $23,000 quarter-mile strip, with a quarter-mile shutdown, east of Sparkman High School on Carters Gin Road. He hoped to open May 14 and run under NHRA rules. Whether it opened then isn’t clear, but a race was definitely held on July 9, 1961. Most races drew a few hundred people, except when big names like Texan Eddie Hill came in. Under new management it opened as Satellite Drag Strip on October 13, 1963, and Clayton Harris raced there on November 24 that year.

It was Madison County Dragway from at least 1975 through 1979. Roger Gustin made exhibition runs in his “Untouchable” jet dragster on July 3-4, 1975. Speed shop owner Ric Yohman bought the track in 1978. IHRA sanctioned it in 1979, and it hosted a National Title Series event for sportsman racers on September 22-23 that year. The track, at 502 Quarter Mountain Road, runs eighth-mile races today.