What Happened To The Once-Mighty Texas World Speedway

Photo credit: Marco Becerra, via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

When it first opened in 1969, Texas World Speedway, was supposed to be the future of American motorosport, but what really happened? And how it looks today?

A vast 2-mile oval cut into the open plains of College Station, its steep 22-degree banking echoed the style of Daytona and Michigan, built for spectacle, and for a while, it delivered exactly that!

During the ’70s this oval was alive, it was not just a racetrack, it was a proving ground for heroes.

Richard Petty, A.J Foyt, Darrell Waltrip, all thundered around its high banks, battling in front of passionate Texas crowds.

The air smelled of rubber and gasoline, and the grandstands swayed with noise as stock cars tore down the straights at over 200 miles per hour.

The early days were amazing here, it became known as the track’s ‘golden era’, a time when it seemed destined to join Daytona and Indianapolis as one of the great American racing cathedrals.

But that dream didn’t last forever.

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The Decline Begins

By the early ’80s, crack, both literal and financial started to appear, NASCAR and IndyCar, which had once brought their biggest stars to the Texas oval, began to drift away.

Rising costs, there were other tracks, newer, more accessible left Texas struggling to survive, so without spotlight of major national events, revenue dried up.

The track did what it could to adapt, smaller regional races, and driving schools tried to keep the gates open, but it was never enough, what had once been a high-speed showcase of US motorsport slowly became an empty relic, its roar replaced by silence and wind sweeping across abandoned infield.

A Track Left Behind

By the 2000s, the track was a ghost of its former self, locals still passed by its towering grandstands, now totally destroyed, you can check in the video below.

Despite occasional rumors of revival, nothing ever came of it, developers and enthusiasts floated ideas about reopening the track but the cost of renovation was immense, and investors were scarce.

The speedway lingered in limbo, frozen in time, some weekends, small driving events or testing sessions filled the air with distant engine noise, but they were faint echoes of its glorious past.

Then came 2017, the year it all ended.

The Final Chapter

When Hurricane Harvey struck Texas in 2017, the track briefly found a new, unintended purpose, thousands of flood-damaged vehicles were brought to its vast infield, neatly aranged in rows across the asphalt that once carried legends, it was the last time the facility served any large-scale function.

After that, word spread that the land has been sold to real estate developer, so in 2018, construction began on a sprawling residential project known as Southern Pointe.

Bulldozers rolled across the old pit lane, the high-banked turns, once filled with cheering fans and screaming engines, were torn apart, within months, the speedway’s iconic oval was gone.

Just like that, the Texas World Speedway vanished from the map.

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What can we say more?

The track is gone, yeah, but its spirit hasn’t been entirely lost, Texas World Speedway was one of only a few true SUPER SPEEDWAYS in the US, its 2-mile layout and steep turns demanded absolute commitment, and for those who raced there, it left a lasting impression.

Memories remain, the thunder of engines and the shimmer of heat above the asphalt, the thrill of seeing their heroes fly past at impossible speeds.

In the end, the story of this is not just about motorsport, it is about memory, how places built for adrenaline and spectacle can slip quietly into history, leaving behind only whispers of what once was.

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Because in College Station, where engines once roared, the silence now tells its own story.