Thunder Valley Dragways (Marion)
ActiveActive Still racing today.
A quarter-mile NHRA track southwest of Sioux Falls that opened in 1967 and is owned by Glen Rapp. It runs a full points season from May to September with holiday weekend races, class racing and a large campground.
- Won its division's NHRA Drag Strip of the Year award six years running through 1975
- Rick Johnson ran 6.47 at 214.28 MPH in the Bear Town Shaker funny car in 1977
- Still owned by original builder Glen Rapp
- Raced
- 1967-present
- State
- South Dakota
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- 1967
- Sanction
- NHRA Division 5
- Track
- 1/4 mile
- Surface
- Asphalt with 300 ft concrete launch pad
- Address
- 27417 Thunder Valley Ave
Parker, SD 57053 - People
- Al Rapp, builder (1966)
- Glen Rapp, builder and owner (1966-present)
- Jim Christensen, track manager (1968, late 1970s)
- Elevation
- 1,378 ft (420 m)
- Coordinates
- 43.41482, -97.21374
Big races
Midwest Class Racers Stock/Super Stock National Open
Stock and Super Stock class racing with NHRA index classes, part of the Midwest Class Racers program.
Weekly points and shootouts
Super Pro, Pro ET, Pro Bike, Sportsman and Super Trophy points plus make-specific shootouts for Mustang, Mopar and Buick-Olds-Pontiac and Friday street-legal nights.
History
Al and Glen Rapp began building this strip 2.5 miles east of Marion in spring 1966. It was 60 feet wide and 3,600 feet long, under NHRA sanction. In June 1967, its first year, Jim Studley of Sioux City, Iowa, was killed when his dragster skidded off the strip at about 150 MPH and overturned. Jim Christensen managed the track in 1968 and again in the late 1970s. On Sunday, April 28, 1968, Don Brescia set a track record of 8.14 at 185.18 MPH in the Brescia-Crowe-Freeman-Gibson AA/FD from Council Bluffs, Iowa. The track usually hosted NHRA divisional points races in the 1970s, and in 1975 it won its division’s NHRA Drag Strip of the Year award for the sixth straight year. On April 24, 1977, Rick Johnson drove Bill Schifsky’s “Bear Town Shaker” funny car to a track ET record of 6.47 at 214.28 MPH. It ran under IHRA sanction in 2003-06. Original owner Glen Rapp still owns it, and it returned to NHRA sanction in 2025.
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