With all of the track closures that have occurred in recent years and the never ending list of ghost tracks that we’ve featured in our Flashback Friday’s, its always a positive and uplifting thing when word of a drag strip opening – rather than closing – comes across our news desk. And it’s even better news if you happen to e a resident of the state of Missouri.

The Mid America Raceway Park, which will be built between the Danville and New Florence exists of I-70 on the south service road in New Florence, has received the go-ahead from public officials after more than a year of discussions. The official groundbreaking is slated to occur this Saturday, October 22 at 10 AM. NHRA Division 5 Director Rob Parks is scheduled to be in attendance, and it was event hinted that Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick may make an appearance.

The brand new quarter-mile facility, located just over an hour west of St. Louis and an hour east of Columbia, is slated to open in the spring of 2012 and feature weekly drag racing from March through October.

This is of course great news for racers in the region who once frequented the Mid-America Raceways in nearby Wentzville before it’s closing and dismantling in 2005 to become a housing subdivision, and sugar on top the news that Gateway International Raceway will reopen in 2012 and strong rumors that Forrest Lucas is planning construction of a drag strip at his Lucas Oil Speedway palace in Wheatland. To read more about about the brand new Mid America Raceway Park, visit MARpark.net.