Auto and Motorcycle Racing

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Entry Category: Auto and Motorcycle Racing

I-30 Speedway

The I-30 Speedway is a high-banked, quarter-mile, red clay, oval auto racing track located in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on Interstate 30 near the border with Saline County. As the heart of central Arkansas auto racing, the I-30 Speedway hosts Weekly Racing Series Events on Saturday nights from the second week in March through the last week in October, with special events held throughout the season. The track is open for sprint, mini-sprint, stock, modified, and other forms of dirt track racing. Events include races affiliated with the American Sprint Car Series (ASCS), Southern United Professional Racing (SUPR), and the Mid-South Racing Association (MSRA). The track’s signature event, the Short Track Nationals for Sprint Cars in October, pays $15,000 to …

Martin, Mark Anthony

Mark Martin is the only driver from Arkansas competing in the top circuit of the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). He ranks tenth on the all-time win list and sixth on the all-time pole position list. In 2017, he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Mark Anthony Martin was born on January 9, 1959, in Batesville (Independence County) to Julian Martin and Jackie Estes Martin. Martin’s father was a truck driver who started a successful Batesville-based trucking company, Julian Martin, Inc., in 1960. As a hobby, Julian also sponsored a race team that competed on the numerous small local race tracks. Martin’s father instilled a passion for driving in him when he was very young. Before …

Memphis-Arkansas Speedway

During a four-year span in the 1950s, the Memphis-Arkansas Speedway located near Lehi (Crittenden County) was the longest racetrack and one of the fastest racetracks on the NASCAR circuit. Only Darlington Speedway in South Carolina and the beach course in Daytona, Florida, saw speeds exceeding the Arkansas speedway’s. In the twenty-first century, approximately a third of premier NASCAR races are run on 1.5 mile, oval tracks; the Memphis-Arkansas Speedway was the first of this kind of track. The paper clip–shaped track, one and half miles in length, was made up of 550-foot-radius, high-banked turns, connected by 2,500-foot straights. “I remember going there a long time ago. We raced there in the summer and I went with Daddy,” said seven-time NASCAR …