The Midwest has been inundated with precipiation during the month of December, first with ice and heavy amounts of snowfall as part of a significant winter storm that marched its way across the country, and then by record levels of rainfall over the weekend that brought flash flood warnings to much of the region.

All of that snow and ice runoff, combined with more than four inches of rain within a 36-hour period, created the perfect scenario for flooding, and unfortunately, man is no match for the fury of mother nature — what wants to flood is going to flood, and there’s very little we can do to stop it. Such has been the case for the Accelaquarter Raceway, as we’ve learned through photos and information shared on their Facebook page.

Accelaquarter, located in the small town of Harrisburg in southern Illinois, is completely under water, with what we’d estimate to be two to three feet standing in various parts of the property. The tower and the eighth-mile strip itself is on slightly higher ground than some of the spectator areas, but is likewise under a foot or more of water, based on the photos.

Despite the destructive forces of water that can easily wash roads away like puddy, drag strip surfaces have notoriously held up well to major floods, as we’ve seen in recent years with massive floods at the Beech Bend Raceway Park in Kentucky, the Woodstrip Dragsatrip in Oregon, Lebanon Valley in New York, and others. Out-buildings like restrooms and concessions often don’t fare as well. But the racing surface? That’s the important (and expensive) part.

The strip is located less than a mile from the Middle Saline Fork River and direcrtly adjacent to a large reservoir.

Frank Sisk purchased Accelaquarter in 2012 and pumped over $1 million into the facility for improvements to make it one of the nicest tracks in the region, and like Sisk, we can only hope that come opening day next season, the remnants of the flooding will be but a distant memory.