The quarter-mile dragstrip in Martin that's been roaring since 1962

On a summer Friday night in Martin, you can hear the place before you see it — a flat, tearing roar rolling out over the farm fields off US-131. That’s a couple of cars launching off the line at US 131 Motorsports Park, a quarter-mile dragstrip that has been doing exactly this since 1962.

It opened that year as Martin Dragway, back when drag racing was exploding across America and just about every region wanted a strip of its own. The format never changes: two cars, a straight quarter mile of prepared asphalt, a Christmas-tree light that drops from yellow to green, and whoever crosses the far end first wins. It is the simplest kind of racing there is — no corners, no strategy, just reaction time and raw power for a handful of seconds.

By the turn of the century the old track was tired, so it got a serious second life: a $14 million rebuild, reopening in the spring of 2002 under the name it carries now. The work turned a vintage strip into a modern facility, and the place leaned into the bragging rights, billing itself as the fastest track in Michigan. The schedule runs spring into fall and pulls in everything from local bracket racers in street cars to big-name nostalgia events — funny cars, dragsters, the loud old machines that fans drive hours to hear.

Part of the appeal is how accessible it is. This is not a sport you only watch on TV. Plenty of nights, an ordinary person can pull their own daily-driver into the staging lanes, strap in, and find out exactly how quick it is down a quarter mile — timing slip and all. In Martin, going fast in a straight line has been a Friday-night institution for more than sixty years, and the fields around the track have just learned to live with the noise.