The 75-80 Drag way began its local legacy in early 1960. The owner of the track, Mr. Bill Wilcom had just arrived home from being stationed out West serving his time in the Airforce.  He had began seeing race tracks popping up in empty fields and was inspired to bring the idea home with him. His father gave him the families alfalfa field and that grew to be 75-80 drag way.

Spending many long nights at drag strips growing up, 75-80 holds a special place in my heart. My immediate family and the more locally famous drag racers like Bunny Burkett have greatly influenced my love for drag racing. Spending time working on my dad’s ’63 Chevrolet Impala and then seeing it zoom down the track at the big races on Friday nights provided me with a sense of pride that most kids my age don’t grow up with. My family and close friends have traveled together all around Maryland to different tracks like Capitol Raceway, Mason Dixon drag way, Maryland International Raceway (MIR) and many others, but arriving at the winner’s circle around 1 a.m on Friday nights really hits home the most for me.

Walking down the long pavement parking lot, passing car trailers, and smelling grape methanol engraves a scent in your brain that never leaves. If you could ask anyone who spent years at the races what they remember most, they would most likely say, “the smell of racing fuel.”  I can physically hear in my mind the times I would make bets with my family on which car would win. We would cheerfully say, “I think the red car will win!” and my older brother would always disagree with what I thought, just to be a pain.

What people who don’t grow up in a drag racing family don’t understand is that to us, the track is more then just a place to hang out a few times a week. For the people who attend regularly, the track is like a big family, even a way of life. Mostly, outsiders aren’t fully accepted into the family until they prove their racing skills to the most experienced racers. Each racer’s home track is webbed full of families ranging from family teams to one-man racing teams.

There are many reasons the track closed, but anyone who truly cared about 75-80 fought the local government to keep it open. Plans are to use the land to build the Monrovia Town Center, but in the racer’s opinion, no one asked for the new development in the first place. The once humble 75-80 Drag-A-Way is now being turned into an unneeded and unwanted result of over development and it saddens everyone who spent years of their life working so very hard to turn that land into a wonderful place.

” The track was sacred ground, and I could feel the spirits of everyone who spent their life racing there that passed away.  To close something so important to so many people and to use it for a shopping center is a sin in the eyes of so many.” – Said Bob Walker Jr, owner of The Loving Chevrolet Impala, who has been going to the track since it first opened in 1960.