As a racer, owner and promoter—depending on the year—Bill’s racing endeavors helped keep the Speedway Motors name out in front of racers. His purple 4x stock cars were familiar sights on dirt tracks throughout the Midwest and were regular winners with drivers like Lloyd Beckman at the wheel. In 1956, Bill and employee Bob McKee built one of the first Pontiacs in NASCAR, which was driven by future Hall of Famer DeWayne "Tiny" Lund. Drag racing also took off in the '50s, and Bill successfully campaigned cars powered by Ford Flatheads and newer Oldsmobile, Chevy, and Chrysler V8 engines. During this same time, Bill began experimenting with fiberglass as a means for building lightweight racecar bodies—a move foretelling things to come. But Speedway Motors isn’t just about racing. We’re about helping our customers build their dreams. If you wanted to go fast, you came to us to soup up your street-driven ride. If you wanted your car to be dressed up, “just like in the magazines,” we sold floor-mounted shifters and Fenton's "Hollywood" dual exhaust packages, and just about anything you might find plated in chrome.

The 1970s were a busy decade around here, especially on the track. In 1971, Lloyd Beckman won the NMRA championship and finished runner-up in the BCRA. Jan Opperman continued to be a force to be reckoned with, winning three features in a row at the 1974 IMCA Winter Nationals in Tampa, Florida. The following year he earned his second BCRA championship and took IMCA runner-up honors. In 1976, Opperman made history by outrunning 56 of the country's best USAC sprint teams on his way to winning the Hulman Classic. Dubbed "The Race that Changed the World," Opperman's victory was a huge shot in the arm for so-called "Outlaw" racers. A couple years later, Doug Wolfgang earned 26 feature wins and won the 1978 Knoxville Nationals—the Indy 500 of sprint cars—driving Bill's 4x car. The 1970s saw a resurgence in street-driven hot rods as the National Street Rod Association was formed and grew in popularity. We were an early supporter of the organization, and today we are recognized as the oldest vendor at the annual Street Rod Nationals. In addition to our popular T-bucket kits, we began offering reproduction '32 Ford roadster bodies and many other fiberglass street rod parts, not to mention frames, chassis components, and countless other pieces to help street rodders build safe, reliable cars. In 1977 and '78, Bill Smith served on the board of directors of the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA). Our continued success and growth encouraged yet another move in 1978, this time to a larger complex. The new facility helped improve order processing and shipping time and set the stage for even more expansion in the decades to come.

The '90s kicked off with a bang when we made a record-setting blast across the Bonneville salt. During the 1990 Speed Week, builder John MacKichan and driver Tim Schulz pushed the bright red Speedway Motors streamliner to 326.17mph, a new record for a small-block Chevys. This was an early indicator that it would be another great racing decade for the company. In 1992, Danny Wallace won 29 feature races and the International Motor Contest Association (IMCA) championship in a Speedway Motors-built IMCA Modified, a car that had been featured on the cover of Stock Car Racing magazine earlier the same year. Beyond the oval track, we got involved in the fabled Pikes Peak Hill Climb. First, Carson Smith designed the "Winged Wonder," which Robby Unser piloted to wins in 1992 and '94. Next, Carson designed a Chevrolet Motorsports-backed S-10 pickup, which won the Pikes Peak truck class in 1995 and '96. After Chevrolet introduced an all-new Corvette in 1997, Carson created a version that won the unlimited class at Pikes Peak in 1998. Like most hot rodders, "Speedy" Bill has always been a collector. Throughout his years of racing and rodding he had quietly amassed an incredibly extensive collection of aftermarket parts, race engines, cars, toys, and automotive memorabilia. In 1992, these acquisitions were formally organized into the Speedway Motors Museum of American Speed, a federally recognized 501(c)3 museum dedicated to preserving significant artifacts of American racing and performance history. If you visit our main campus in Lincoln, you can visit this remarkable attraction!

We raced into the new Millennium headfirst by moving into a new corporate campus in Lincoln. The 520,000 sq. ft., 46-acre facility would allow the company to continue to grow, while the technologically advanced call center and warehouse provided the capacity to process and ship record numbers of orders without sacrificing our signature speedy delivery. By this time, we were recognized as America's Oldest Speed Shop®. Our Lo-boy roadster kit, first introduced in the mid-1980s, showed its staying power by serving as the basis for Street Rodder magazine's popular SpeedRodder build-up series in the early part of the decade. Interestingly, the car would go on to be honored as one of 2001's "100 Best" by Rod & Custom magazine. "Speedy" Bill's personal '57 Chevy custom rod, built by local craftsman Dale Boesch, received the same honor. "Speedy" Bill, meanwhile, found himself being inducted into various motorsports and hot rodding Halls of Fame. After more than five decades in business, our continued growth and success were the result of the business principles we were founded upon: giving car enthusiasts quality components at affordable prices with quick delivery and courteous service. We purchased AFCO Performance group in 2008. This expanded our incredible line of house brand products, while also adding a distribution center in Indiana.