About Merritt Speedway

In the mid-1960s, a handful of drivers racing at the Cadillac Fairgrounds got fed up with track management and bet Gene Kregear he wouldn't build his own track. He built it. In 1968, Gene and Mary Ann Kregear turned their back forty — halfway between Lake City and Cadillac — into Merritt Speedway, and northern Michigan's Saturday nights have sounded different ever since.

The track's defining era began in 1981, when Ed and Carmen VanDuinen — Carmen is Gene's daughter — pooled everything they had to buy the speedway back and spent the next 25 years building it into one of the best 3/8-mile dirt tracks in the Midwest. They made Merritt a family place before that was fashionable: the first track in the region to build a playground behind the grandstands, the famous Merritt cows wandering the stands handing out candy, a weekly Jr. Fan winner who got a ride around the track. Ed was named Promoter of the Year six times. When he passed in 2010, the track's biggest race took his name — the Ed VanDuinen Memorial Wood Tic still runs every summer.

Today, under owner Mike Blackmer (since 2015), Merritt Speedway remains what it's always been: a 3/8-mile semi-banked clay oval where Dirt Late Models, IMCA Modifieds, Pro Stocks, Factory Stocks, 4-6 Cylinders, and Mini Wedges do battle every Saturday night — with the next generation starting out in the Wedges, just like it should be.

Michigan's Premier Dirt Track. Est. 1968. Built on a bet.