Nashville Dragway
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
Also known as Rainbow Raceway
- Advertised as the world's first NHRA-sanctioned eighth-mile strip
- A circus animal act performed uncaged on the strip on August 1, 1964
- Raced
- 1963-ca. 1968
- State
- Illinois
- What's left
- You can still spot it in aerial photos, or broken pieces of the track surface remain.
- First race
- September 22, 1963
- Track
- 1/8 mile
- Location
- 1.5 miles east of Nashville
- People
- Wayne "Tiny" Meinert, owner
- Sanction
- NHRA
- Elevation
- 526 ft (160 m)
- Coordinates
- 38.34729, -89.34795
This strip, 1.5 miles east of Nashville, held its first race on September 22, 1963. Wayne “Tiny” Meinert owned it. Its ads claimed it was the world’s first NHRA-sanctioned eighth-mile strip, with racing in seventy classes. It may later have been called Rainbow Raceway after a nearby Rainbow gas station. On Saturday night, August 1, 1964, before eliminations, the Kasten family from Germany, then touring with the Shrine Circus, put their trained apes, orangutan, gorilla, leopard and jaguar through an uncaged act on the strip. Mike Gaines set a strip record of 7.83 seconds in his AA/S Plymouth on August 1, 1965. The Swedish magazine Start & Strip listed it among 325 U.S. drag strips in 1968. Little else is known about it.
More in Illinois
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Alton Dragway 1958-72
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Beardstown Drag Strip 1967-1979 or early 1980s
- Nothing left No longer racing, and nothing of the track remains. Camp Ellis (Canton) 1953-56
- Status unknown Closed, but nobody has checked how much of the site survives, or the exact spot was never found. CMW Dragway (Paris) 1971-74
- Active Still racing today. Coles County Dragway (Charleston) 1966-present
- Active Still racing today. Cordova Dragway/Quad City Drags 1956-present
- Nothing left No longer racing, and nothing of the track remains. Fairfield Drag Strip 1966-73
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Greater Peoria Dragstrip/Boondocks Dragway 1957-mid 1970s
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Greene County Fairgrounds (Carrollton) 1958-59, 1961-63
- Nothing left No longer racing, and nothing of the track remains. Half Day Speedway 1952-53
- Active Still racing today. I-57 Drag Strip/Ellis I-57 Drag Strip (Benton) 1972-present
- Nothing left No longer racing, and nothing of the track remains. International Amphitheatre (Chicago) 1962-64