Long Forgotten El Paso Dragstrip Decays In The Desert

What used to be a fast, loud and exciting place now lays quietly in far East El Paso.

From what little info I could find, Thunder Alley was open from '69 - '05 and was raced by 70's - 80's legends like Don "Big Daddy" Garlits, Shirley Muldowney, Don "the Snake" Prudhomme, Tom "Mongoose" McEwen and more. (For pictures from back in the day, click here and here.)

DCA Visuals, creators of the video above, posted this:

I would always hear friends talking about Thunder Alley in high school and how they’d go on Friday nights and watch people test and tune. Records were made, cars were crashed, and emotions would flare as cars and their drivers performed their best. As we were doing our initial research for this project, Samuel, found that this drag strip originally served as a private airport runway in the 60s and 70s for Mr Barnett, no relation to the family of or owner of Barnett Harley Davidson. How crazy is that?! An airport runway which, at that time, would’ve been miles outside of the city of El Paso!

The only things sailing down Thunder Alley now are sand and tumbleweeds but, years ago ...