The Lost El Paso Drag Strips That Racing Fans Still Miss

The love of racing in El Paso has always been strong. We've talked about the old El Paso Speedway Park but we're gonna talk about another form of racing we loved to do: drag racing. We've had several drag strips around El Paso through out the years that have come and gone. Here's a few that are sadly no longer around but, we still can remember through photos and videos.

Sun City Dragway/Thunder Alley

Back in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s, the best place to watch drag racing in El Paso was the Sun City Dragway. Thanks to groups like the Southwest Drags & the Sun City Dragway Facebook group, you can actually look at the track back during its heyday.

The same course would continue to host races under different names like the West Texas Motorsports Park & the more notable name, Thunder Alley Dragway.

Thanks to people on YouTube like g89stang & southwestdrags, we can watch old footage of some of the races that took place from the 90s...

(You can find parts 2 here and parts 3 here)

all the way to the 2000s before the track would close down.

El Paso Motorplex

March 2008 was a great day for racers in El Paso as it was the opening month for the El Paso Motorplex located in Clint. Not only were there drag races held on asphalt, but sand drag races were a thing too.

The track even got some tv time on ESPN during the broadcast NHRA Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals as a special feature. It was a two minute feature but it was nice seeing the track get some love on national television.

The Motorplex would close down in early 2019 so all we have to remember the track (and indeed ALL these racetracks) are the photos & videos people took through out the years. Not to mention the wild rides taken at the tracks too...

(Don't worry everyone walked away after these wrecks)

Here are some other old El Paso drag strips

Other places that are worth mentioning were the Ascarate Park racetrack that existed way back in the 60s. Not only do photos exist of this track on Facebook like on the El paso History Alliance Facebook group, but there's also THIS video gem of racing from the 1960s around both Ascarate & Sunland Park.

There's even more old drag strips that existed in El Paso (thanks to the Drag Strip List website) like Enchantment Park & the Cordova Island drag strip. They included old newspaper clippings on the website but if anyone has info or photos from ANY of these old drag strips, feel free to send us photos through our app!

If you want to relive more nostalgia, you can see the history of Magic Landing from back then and to what it is now here.

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