Eldora Speedway

One of the most famous dirt tracks in the world.

Earl Baltes built a 1/4 mile race track here in 1954. He expanded it to a 3/8 mile circuit in 1956 and enlarged it again to it's current 1/2 mile size in 1958. Over time, the track gained fame by hosting all of the best stock car and open wheel dirt track racing series. Some of the biggest events on the track's annual schedule are the Kings Royal, the 4 Crown Nationals, the World 100, and the Dream.

In 2003, the track held the Mopar Million USAC sprint car race. It was the first time a short track had offered a total purse of one million dollars. Jac Haudenschild won $200,000 as the winner of that event.

In the early 1970's, Baltes began building a one mile track on the property southeast of the half mile track. He halted the project after realizing that other one mile tracks were beginning to struggle. The footprint of the one mile track is still visible on satellite imagery.

After 50 years of operating the track, Baltes sold the business to NASCAR driver Tony Stewart in November 2004. Stewart has since spent a lot of money on modernizing the facility.

In 2005, Stewart added the Prelude to the Dream event to the annual schedule, in which he invites several drivers from other major forms of motorsports to compete in dirt late models.