If you ask people about their memories of Detroit Dragway, they will tell you about ground-shaking funny cars, the smell of octane and all the weekends spent watching friends and family race their cars. People from miles away recall hearing the sounds of the engines roar.

It all started in 1959 with track owner and promoter Gil Kohn, who opened Detroit Dragway.

Located on Sibley Road between Dix and Allen Roads, it was a quarter-mile strip that became closely associated with the booming Detroit muscle-car era. The dragway quickly became one of the country’s best-known straight-line racing venues. Photos courtesy of Gerry Kaleniecki.

The track was also widely recognized for its iconic "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!" radio advertisements, which aimed to draw crowds out to race on Sundays. Its most legendary commercial highlighted the voices of popular local disc jockeys Joel Sebastian and Rube Weiss.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the track drew top names such as Connie Kalitta, Don Garlits, Don Nicholson, Dick Landy, Ronnie Sox, and Shirley Muldowney. It was especially important because Detroit-area factories, tuners and racers used it as a proving ground for performance cars.

By the 1990s, attendance had fallen among changing times. The last races were held in 1997. Today, the site of the dragway is an industrial/logistics complex.