Don Prudhomme had his doubts. 

For a little over a decade, the iconic driver whose name was synonymous with Funny Car racing had raced against Billy Meyer, a driver who dreamed big and talked even bigger. This time Meyer wasn't planning to do something behind the wheel of his Funny Car. Instead, he proposed a drag strip the likes of what no one had ever seen, much less raced on. 

Meyer told anyone who would listen, including Prudhomme, his plans to build the greatest drag strip ever, one which featured an entire concrete quarter-mile racing surface. 

Such talk at the time was ... well, crazy speak. 

"He was a bit cocky," Prudhomme added. 

At the time, Prudhomme wasn't racing after lack of sponsorship forced him to take a season off and regroup. But when the inaugural NHRA Texas Nationals in September 1986 rolled around, he was there as a spectator. 

Prudhomme will never forget his first impression of "The Track That Billy Built."

"I was surprised it came out that nice, you know," Prudhomme said. "All concrete, it's something that we just didn't have back in those days. To have a concrete surface like this and the grandstands. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best track in the country."

Prudhomme isn't just saying those words. He truly means what he said. It has nothing to do with being named one of the Legends of the Texas Motorplex, alongside Richard Shute, the award-winning photographer who founded Auto Imagery. 

For a track he holds in such high esteem, being named a legend hits right in the heart for a drag racer who has been there and done that more times than he can recall.

"Fortunately in my career, I've had other honors bestowed upon me, but this ranks right up there among the best of it," Prudhomme explained. "I have a great deal of feelings for this race track."

Those feelings had nothing to do with ground-breaking design or technology and everything to do with a personal memory. 

"It was the last place that I won a race as a driver," Prudhomme said. "Just is a special place."

Prudhomme remembers the first time he raced at the Texas Motorplex. Ironically, it was in 1987 with sponsorship from U.S. Tobacco and its Skoal brand. Just six years earlier, Meyer had lost his Skoal sponsorship because of substandard facilities, and it inspired the construction of the Texas Motorplex. 

"I was licking my chops to get a shot at it," said Prudhomme.

Once the shot arrived, Prudhomme realized quickly it wasn't such an easy task out of the box. 

Meyer's reasoning was many tracks had installed concrete pads, many of which went out as far as 300 feet.  They provided the race cars with an excellent launch, but adjustments had to be made to keep the cars under power once the surface transitioned to asphalt.

"It was a little tricky at first," Prudhomme recalled. "You had to stay right in the groove. But I was blown away. I just knew that whatever the track was better than our cars, pretty much at the time, so that's what improved the cars in reaching the great speeds and stuff they do is because of this track." 

Before the opening of the Texas Motorplex, Prudhomme knew if Meyer's hype proved to be fact, as he would forever change major league drag racing. 

"We knew that drag racing was going to change completely because this track is going to make all the rest of them stand up and take notice of what a drag strip is supposed to be built," Prudhomme said. "And Billy Meyer did it."

Then again, for Prudhomme, there's a part of him that will never forget that cocky kid who came into Funny Car racing when he was the king. 

"He was there to take my throne and I didn't want to give it up," Prudhomme said. "So we went head to head many a times. Those days they were dog eat dog pretty much. I mean, I was here to kick his and he was there to kick my ass."

But on this weekend, the two Hall of Famers are here to complement one another. A drag racing legend made possible by a drag racer with a vision.