Sophie Villarreal
A sleek, red 1967 Chevrolet Camero SS convertible was the car that started the idea that would become Bray’s Motor Museum & Playground. The one-stop-shop for everything to do with classic cars, motors and memorabilia meets the adrenaline-pumping thrill of speed at their track experience to create a unique destination that “fuels the fun” in the Brazos Valley.
With almost 70,000 feet of wall-to-wall classic, vintage, modern and race cars along with every type of motor conceivable, Bray’s invites visitors to take a walk through the history of every kind of motorized vehicle. From tractors to speed boats, Bray’s has everything a gearhead could ask for just off of I-45 in Madisonville.
Insite staff took a trip to the “car side” to experience the treasure of Bray’s and learn the story behind the daring business venture. Featuring two race tracks and a drift pad alongside a full motor-themed museum, we invite readers to buckle up and sit back to read all about this Brazos Valley gem.
Classic Car Summer
Jim Bray always had a thing for cars. After creating Texas Pride Trailers in Madisonville, he started building his own private car collection. He even roped his brother, Micah Brett, in on his obsession bringing him along to car shows, museums and auctions.
It was while visiting the Volo Auto Museum, a legendary classic car museum and sale house, in Chicago where Jim made Micah an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“We're walking around Volo and he says he wants to start [Bray’s],” Micah recalls. “I said to him, ‘That's cool. You ever seen the money pit?’ And he didn't laugh, you know? He said, ‘Well the crazy part is I want you to run it.’
“Then he said, ‘Look, I know this probably gonna be hard for you to make this decision, so how about this as a sign-on deal? You pick any car in here, I'll buy it. And we'll use it for a while on the track and then it’s yours.’ I said, ‘Okay, no problem.’”
At the time, Micah was running one of the newest Texas Pride facilities outside of Eugene, Oregon. He had only had the chance to enjoy the green mountains of the Pacific Northwest for 11 months before becoming the general manager of Bray’s and moving to Madisonville.
After being convinced — or bribed depending on who’s asked — to run and manage Bray’s in late October 2022, the facility broke ground in November of that year. The museum officially opened less than a year later on Halloween 2023. The team only just recently kicked off their advertisements for the museum and track in earnest with a billboard going up off of I-45 in the beginning of January 2024.
“We want to turn this into a real race day facility— I want to be up there with the big dogs,” Micah says. “I don't know if y'all are familiar with Avondale outside of New Orleans, but it’s a huge race facility that just offers so much more than we have right now. And I want to be on the same level as them but with more family-friendly activities than just the race day stuff.”
Need for Speed
The engine roars with the vibrato of pure American muscle sending a small taste of 707 horsepower shivering up the spine. A Dodge Challenger Hellcat twists around pinpoint turns and rockets down the straight topping out at 199 miles per hour. Stupified silence fills the car as the passengers focus solely on keeping their cores engaged so they don’t fall over in their seats. Expert hands whip the wheel around and make the beast dance along the track only a few millimeters away from the curb.
The eight-turn track with a quarter-mile straightaway is one of the crowning jewels of Bray’s — it is a defining experience with the capacity to awaken the speed demon inside of anyone.
Bray’s has two full-time, professional race car drivers on staff. They’re able to ride along with visitors for tips on racing the track or jump in the driver’s seat themselves and show the average Joe what it’s like to push a car to the limit.
One such driver, Steven Padgett, has 30 years of professional driving experience and a wry smile that only gets wider as he dances on the edge of speed and fear.
“[My brother and I] started watching the World of Outlaws [Sprint Cars] when it first started broadcasting on TV,” Steven explains. “I got hooked on sprint cars at a very young age.”
Steven’s professional driving career started with a chance encounter he had one day on his way home from work over three decades ago. He saw a trailer with three sprint cars in front of the mechanic shop and he couldn’t help but stop and introduce himself. The owner, Wayne Brown, offered him the deal of a lifetime: $400 to rent a car to drive at the track with fuel, helmet, fire suit and shoes included.
Sophie Villarreal
“I rented the car from him for three weekends straight,” Steven says. “After that, I ended up driving for him. [At my first race] they made me start dead last because I had no experience. I came up and finished in seventh place on my very first night. I was hooked after that.”
Steven heard about Bray’s when Micah and creative director Dominic “Dom” Orozco were still building the museum. His son was contracted to do the spray foam for the museum and encouraged him to reach out and ask if the team needed a professional driver.
“I brought a lot to the table,” Steven says. “I can drive these cars and really help our customers become better drivers. Just try to help them navigate through this track. You know, we get a lot of guys [who have] never even been on the track before — and they love coming out here and getting coached.”
Everyone at Bray’s is an expert in one thing or another. Mason Clark, a young man with a passion for cars and Bray’s official porter, knows the ins and outs of every car on the track.
“This is our [1968 Chevy] Stingray [Corvette],” Mason explains while giving a tour of the garage. “This is the base model car with a track pack and it’s the most forgiving and best handling thing on our track. It’s hard to get this thing sideways, squirrely or anything else. You're able to hammer this and it'll be very forgiving.
“This is our new Ferrari [Spider] that we just got,” Mason adds. “I think we're still making up our minds whether or not we want it to be a track car. It's a very nice car, especially for an older Ferrari. It's a lot of fun [to drive] and it sounds amazing.”
Every gearhead has a favorite car and Mason — though new to the game compared to his coworkers — is no exception.
“Probably my favorite thing out here is the [Chevy Corvette] Z06,” Mason says. “This thing is a beast. It's got 600 horsepower, and this is honestly just too much car for our track. It gets up and goes. They've gotten this up to 115 [miles per hour] on the straight and that's with time to break for the next corner.”
The race track may be the main course, but the real head-turning experience is on the drift pad, where the world starts spinning.
“We've got about an acre of concrete for our drift pad,” Mason says. “We [usually] use the [Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat] to drift. The other Hellcat you can take on the track, but we don't allow this one on the track [because of the tires].”
It’s a short trip to the drift pad from the race track itself and customers can be taken on a twisting path of figure eights and intertwining circles around the cones by the professional divers.
“We’ll go out there and drift a little bit,” Steven adds. “I like to finish by drifting around the perimeter of the pad.”
It’s more than just concrete and asphalt at Bray’s. For those looking for an untamed and wild experience, the dirt Baja track is a perfect way to kick the dust-up.
“We'll get sideways, coming out there just kicking dirt,” Steven laughs. “Then what we do is go around the outside perimeter of the berm. It feels like you're fixing to tumble over because you can't see past the berm and you can't see where you're going. It's quite an experience for the first time. It blows people's minds.”
To the Future
Having opened an expansion to the museum in June, more than doubling the square footage of the original and adding a lounge with comfy couches, Micah, Dom and Jim are constantly thinking of ways to improve the experience at Bray’s. With plans to add a drive-in theater, a dirt track that circles the property and a stocked pond for bass fishing, the Bray’s team is dedicated to creating a destination worth traveling to.
“We are here to provide something that is going to be a nationwide destination at some point,” Micah says. “We're developing this into a Disneyland for gearheads. I have 300 plus acres that we're actively developing out here to turn into something great, an automotive amusement park.”
Bray’s Motor Museum & Playground invites guests to reserve the track in addition to scheduling a ride-along or guided experience. Visit braysmotor.com or call (936) 463-6334 to learn more about Bray’s, book the track for a one-of-a-kind, hot-rod experience and walk through the history of the motorized vehicle.
