World Wide Technology Raceway

History

One of the first races on the eighth-mile strip built where Gateway Motorsports Park now stands was the AHRA 1/8th Mile Spring Nationals on June 17, 1967. That first season had grudge racing every Wednesday night and regular programs Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. It was first called St. Louis Raceway Park, or “The Swamp,” and ran north to south. On Saturday night, July 15, 1967, it held a four-way match race among big-name A/GS cars: Stone-Woods-Cook, George Montgomery, John Mazmanian and K. S. Pittman. On April 7, 1968, John Buttera hit sand at almost 200 mph and rolled his new dragster five times, totaling it. He escaped with a broken arm, cuts and bruises. The track hosted an AHRA Grand American points race on May 4-5, 1968, and in May 1969 Bob Murray of St. Louis set an eighth-mile national record for AA/FD at 4.6 seconds and 181.40 mph.

The strip was lengthened in 1970 and renamed St. Louis International Raceway so it could host the three-day AHRA Gateway Nationals on July 30-August 1, 1971. Steve Carbone beat Dale Funk for top fuel eliminator at 6.55 seconds and 225 mph, Tom Hoover won funny car and Tom Haller won pro stock. Seating went up to 25,000 for the second Gateway Nationals on August 4-6, 1972. Wayne and Ruth Meinert, former owners of Nashville Dragway, began running the track in 1974. At an AHRA Grand American race on August 4, 1974, Bill Bagshaw’s engine blew near the finish, and he spun in his own oil and flipped over the guardrail into the bleachers, killing two spectators and injuring thirty. A multimillion-dollar expansion in 1996 moved the drag strip southwest of the old quarter mile, and the big NASCAR oval was built over the old strip.