{"id":100462,"date":"2025-05-01T14:18:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T14:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/mo-kan-dragway-balances-history-and-progress-one-upgrade-at-a-time\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T14:18:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T14:18:29","slug":"mo-kan-dragway-balances-history-and-progress-one-upgrade-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/mo-kan-dragway-balances-history-and-progress-one-upgrade-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo-Kan Dragway Balances History and Progress, One Upgrade at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 27 years at the helm, Carl Blanton and his team continue to reshape the legacy of Mo-Kan Dragway \u2013 not by changing what it is, but by making it better. The historic track in Asbury, Missouri, founded in 1962, has quietly become one of the Midwest\u2019s most beloved grassroots racing venues; and now, one of its most improved.<\/p>\n

Since taking over in 1999, Blanton has constantly tried to improve the facility. Within a year of taking over, he installed a new timing system. In 2005, they repaved the racing surface, and in 2009 a new tower was built. Over the past few years, Blanton \u2013 along with his son, Craig, and Track Manager Tyler West \u2013 has added numerous major safety enhancements, one of the biggest being replacing the guardrails along the track with concrete walls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think it\u2019s huge,\u201d said Blanton. \u201cI was very glad to get that done. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve wanted to do ever since I came here. We don\u2019t have all the wall that I want yet, but hopefully that will happen soon enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the walls were completed in the winter of 2020-2021, attention turned to another major project: repaving a large portion of the pit area and staging lanes. During the summer of 2024, Mo-Kan announced \u201cProject Pave the Pits,\u201d which allowed local businesses to partner with the track in repaving over 90,000 sq. ft. on the property.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTyler did an excellent job of rounding up marketing partners to help with that,\u201d Blanton said. \u201cAt the end of the day, they probably helped with about 20% of the cost, and then 40% we borrowed from the bank, and 40% we paid out of pocket. That\u2019s kind of the way things get done around here. You\u2019ve got to be creative in your financing. But it\u2019s easier to get others onboard when you lay out the project for them and say, \u2018This is how the money will be spent,\u2019 and then show them the results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already in 2025, Mo-Kan has repaved and widened both of their turnoffs in the shutdown area, and upgrade that Blanton says will be especially beneficial at events like Funny Car Chaos and Nitro Chaos, with cars that need the extra room prior to being towed back to the pits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to those major renovations, Blanton and his team have quietly been making less-noticeable \u2013 but equally important \u2013 upgrades as well. They replaced the old wooden bleachers with aluminum ones, installed a new ticket booth on the spectator side, paved the entry road, built a new concession stand, and completely rebuilt the septic system. Yet despite all the improvements, Blanton continues to focus on what\u2019s ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re in a pretty good position right now, but if we have as good a year this year as we\u2019ve had in years past, there\u2019s definitely things we\u2019ll be looking at,\u201d said Blanton. \u201cWe want to rebuild the restroom facility on the pit side and have a purposed picnic and merchandise area. I think the biggest thing that\u2019s on the horizon is a total repavement of the track, but that may be two or three years down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps most impressively, all this progress hasn\u2019t come at the expense of Mo-Kan\u2019s signature small-town charm. Blanton jokes that the worst thing that could happen to Mo-Kan is if they won the lottery, because they would spend all the money, and he\u2019s not sure that\u2019s always the answer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve told people it\u2019s like the local bar and grill,\u201d Blanton said. \u201cYou can go to a chain restaurant and you just kind of feel like you\u2019re at a chain restaurant. But if you\u2019re lucky enough to have a local tavern that has a hell of a hamburger and you can get a cold beer with it, that\u2019s what you want. And that\u2019s what we want. We want that mom-and-pop local feel. You\u2019ve got to maintain that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That authenticity is part of what draws bigger and bigger shows to Mo-Kan. Whether it\u2019s Funny Car Chaos and Nitro Chaos, the Titans of 10.5 small tire series, or the upcoming 405 Shootout hosted by Street Outlaws stars Farmtruck and AZN, the track is now a go-to destination.<\/p>\n

Still, the heartbeat of Mo-Kan is with its local supporters. The track has featured a very healthy bracket program for more than 25 years, as well as hugely popular spring and fall nostalgia events. Their Memorial Day race enters its 59th year this season, while the Labor Day Classic will mark its 60th. These aren\u2019t just races \u2013 they\u2019re family traditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a lot of Labor Day weekends, a lot of Memorial Day weekends with generations of families coming to race or coming to watch,\u201d said West. \u201cThis is what they do on those weekends, and it\u2019s pretty wild to encounter that. We\u2019re really fortunate that the fans and the racers have been so supportive, which has allowed us to stay in business, thrive, and continue to do improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Mo-Kan gears up for a full 2025 schedule, with the aforementioned events being just the tip of the iceberg, Blanton and his team are doing more than improving a track. They\u2019re preserving a legacy \u2013 one upgrade at a time.<\/p>\n

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This story was originally published on May 1, 2025. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post Mo-Kan Dragway Balances History and Progress, One Upgrade at a Time<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 27 years at the helm, Carl Blanton and his team continue to reshape the legacy of Mo-Kan Dragway \u2013 not by changing what it is, but by making it better. The historic track in Asbury, Missouri, founded in 1962, has quietly become one of the Midwest\u2019s most beloved grassroots racing venues; and now, one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}