Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park (TSMP), formerly Thompson Speedway and Thompson International Speedway, is a motorsports park in
Thompson, Connecticut
Thompson is a town in Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Northeastern Connecticut Planning Region. The town was named after Sir Robert Thompson, an English landholder. The population was 9,189 at the 2020 census ...
, featuring a asphalt oval
racetrack and a
road racing
Road racing is a North American term to describe motorsport racing held on a paved road surface. The races can be held on a race track, closed circuit—generally, a purpose-built racing facility—or on a street circuit that uses temporarily c ...
course. Known as the "
Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
of the East", it was the first asphalt-paved racing oval track in the United States and is now under the
American-Canadian Tour (ACT) and
Pro All Stars Series
The Pro All Stars Series is a stock car racing governing body active in the United States of America and Canada. The series started in 2001 and now sanctions various series including North, South, and National Super Late Model tours and a New Eng ...
(PASS) banners. Each year, Thompson hosts one of the great fall variety events "The World Series of Speedway Racing" highlighted by the
New England Supermodified Series and the
NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour (NWMT) (previously the NASCAR Winston Modified Tour and NASCAR Featherlite Modified Series from 1985 until 2005) is a modified stock car racing series owned and operated by NASCAR in the Modified Division. The Mod ...
. This event frequently draws over 350 race cars in 16 separate divisions over three days. Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park is the track that had hosted the most ever races in the modern era of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour with 155 races from 1985 to 2024.
The speedway also had hosted 3
NASCAR Grand National Series races, one in
1951
Events
January
* January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950).
* January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...
and two between
1969
1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the ...
and
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...
. The facility also had hosted 5
NASCAR North Tour events from 1981 to 1985 and 29
NASCAR K&N Pro Series East races, between 1988 and
2018
Events January
* January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency.
* January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...
.
History

Following cleanup from the hurricane of 1938, John Hoenig built a paved oval on his farmland in the northeast corner of Connecticut. A 1.56 mile paved road course operated from 1952 through October 8th, 1956. A 2 mile paved road course operated from May 26th, 1957 through 1967. A 1.7 mile paved road course operated from 1967 to around 1978. A paved dragstrip operated in 1958 and 1959, using the front straight of the oval.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Thompson's Sunday night program was a who's who of modified greats such as
Carl "Bugs" Stevens,
Fred DeSarro,
Fred Schulz,
Ron Bouchard,
Ed Flemke,
Leo Cleary,
Smoky Boutwell, and
Geoff Bodine
Geoffrey Eli Bodine (born April 18, 1949) is an American former motorsport driver and bobsled builder. He raced at the NASCAR Cup Series from 1979 to 2011, earning 18 wins and a best season finish of third in 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series, 1990.
...
. During this period the track hosted memorable special events which drew legendary Southern drivers like
Ray Hendrick in the famous "Fireball" #11 to battle the locals. Other surprise stars included Long Island's
Fred Harbach and
Rene Charland
Rene Charland (November 13, 1928 – September 30, 2013), nicknamed "The Champ", was an American stock car racing driver. He was a four-time champion of the NASCAR National Sportsman Division, now known as the Xfinity Series.
Career
Charland w ...
from Massachusetts.
In the late 1970s, the track drew 55 winged Super Modifieds to their World Series race. By owner's choice, all 55 started. During the energy crisis of the 1970s, Thompson hosted a unique division called the "Open Competitive" division which merged the Super Modifieds with the Modifieds. Later, Thompson tried a lower-cost stock-cylinder-head modified division, which chased away some of the tracks regulars. Until the 1980s the track had a unique barrier outside turns 1–2 and 3–4 made of dirt fill.
Today
Hoenig's grandson D.R. and great-grandson Jonathan continue to operate the family-owned facility. As of June 1, 2013, the Hoenig family began work to reconstruct the road course with and accompanying paddock and staging areas, and the website reflected the renaming of the facility to Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park. The newly rebuilt road course celebrated its "soft opening" with the New England Region of
SCCA
The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) is a non-profit American automobile club and sanctioning body supporting Autocross, Rallycross, High Performance Driver Education, HPDE, Time trial, Time Trial, Road racing, Road Racing, Regularity rally, R ...
on the weekend of June 6–8, 2014. Thompson created a private club for individual use of the road course, the websit
notes that "The Club" will be limited to 200 members.
Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park continues to run ACT/PASS-sanctioned races on the oval track, with 10 dates scheduled for 2025. The two largest events, The Icebreaker and The Sunoco World Series of Speedway Racing, are traditionally New England’s season opener and season finale. Both multi-day events draw several hundred race cars from up to 18 divisions. The Road course hosts many more events such as SCCA major and regional races, vintage race festivals, high-performance driving events (HPDEs) and drifting.
The park has hosted nine events for the
24 Hours of Lemons series. The first was in August 2015, and the most recent was in August 2024.
In June 2017, the park hosted two rounds of the
2017 Global RallyCross Championship using a combination of the road course and a dirt track
Use in simulations / games
The current layout appears in the online racing simulation ''
iRacing
''iRacing'' is a subscription-based online sim racing video game developed and published by iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations in 2008. All in-game sessions are hosted on the publisher's servers. The game simulates real world cars, tracks, and ...
'' where it is laser scanned for millimeter accuracy.
A recreation of the track as it appeared in 1970 is included in the retro-themed game
NASCAR Legends.
Notable race results
Atlantic Championship Series
Race lap records
As of May 2015, the fastest official race lap records at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park are listed as:
Deaths
Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park has also endured some tragic moments which have claimed the lives of the following competitors: David Peterson (1977), Tony Willman, Fred DeSarro, Harry Kourafus Jr., Dick Dixon, Corky Cookman,
Tom Baldwin, Sr.,
John Blewett III, and most recently
Shane Hammond (April 6, 2008). DeSarro's death prompted a memorial fund-raiser which drew the largest crowd to date and the Northeast's best drivers in an open competition Modified race with no purse. Both Evans and Bodine mounted their cars with wings. Baldwin and Blewett died while competing in the same race on the tour, three years apart.
References
External links
Official siteThompson Speedway Motorsports Park archiveat Racing-Reference
*
' by Terry O'Neil. Published by Dalton Watson Fine Books. 2018.
{{Valenti Modified Racing Series racetracks
Motorsport venues in Connecticut
NASCAR tracks
Thompson, Connecticut
Buildings and structures in Windham County, Connecticut
1940 establishments in Connecticut
Road courses in the United States