Southern Illinois Dragway (Marion)

Jim Willhite and Jim Cox spent $18,000 on a new eighth-mile strip 3.5 miles west of Marion, south of Herrin, southwest of where Route 13 meets Route 148. The asphalt strip was 32 feet wide and 1,000 feet long. It was near the Williamson County Airport but not on it, since the owners paid to lay their own blacktop. It opened on June 19, 1960, when Bob Grubb of Cisne won the first top eliminator trophy in his 1934 Chevy coupe. Now and then it booked match racers or exhibition cars. In 1963 races ran every Saturday night, and on September 7 Floyd Chitty of Marion won top eliminator in his A Gas 1936 Pontiac coupe at 93.724 mph. Chitty was the promoter by 1970. The Carbondale Southern Illinoisan reported on April 21, 1967, that Jim Poe had been charged with assault and disorderly conduct at a drag strip south of Herrin on Saturday, April 15. The track was AHRA-sanctioned very briefly in 1970 but dropped it by May and went back to NHRA rules. Crowds usually ran 1,000 to 1,500 and never topped 2,000. Super stock racing was the staple from the late 1960s until it closed, and nothing has turned up after 1971.