Thompson Speedway

John Hoenig decided on a new venture when the great hurricane of 1938 devastated his farm in Connecticut. Rather than reconstruct as before, he built a high-banked oval that was the first such track to be paved in asphalt when it opened on 26 May 1940. Three top division NASCAR races have been held at Thompson Speedway with a different lap distance listed on each occasion: 0.5-miles in 1951, 0.625 in 1969 and its actual distance 0.542 miles in 1970. The SCCA organised road races on the roads south of the speedway from 1957 and today’s permanent road course opened in the late-1960s.