Speedway started in 1952 as
Speedway 79, the name of a fuel chain based in
Michigan. Unlike other fuel station chains at the time, Speedway 79 did not have a
service station to perform vehicle maintenance, but rather
vending machines that focused on
cigarette and
soft drink sales, giving their locations the nickname "
Smokes and
Cokes". The "79" denoted the
octane rating of Speedway's gasoline. In 1959,
Marathon Oil, then known as the Ohio Oil Company, purchased the chain and in 1962 converted its outlets to the Marathon brand. As self-service fuel became legalized in many states, in May 1975 Marathon decided to use "Speedway" (without the "79", as 87 octane had become the standard at this point) at higher-volume self-service stations with convenience stores. Some of the first were converted from
Oshkosh, Wisconsin–based Consolidated Stores, which at the time had locations in
Wisconsin and Michigan. These stores were converted to the Speedway name throughout the 1970s and 1980s after Marathon acquired Consolidated. The concept turned out to be one of the few bright spots for Marathon during this time due to the
1970s energy crisis, and the company quickly expanded this concept across Marathon's main territories across the Midwest and Southeastern United States. Part of this expansion was through the acquisition of various other smaller regional fuel station chains, including
GasAmerica, '''Starvin' Marvin
, Gastown
, Wake Up
, Bonded
, United
, Cheker
, Port
, Ecol
, and Value'''. These stations were converted to the Speedway branding. Stations acquired in the Cheker deal included former
Enco stations that Cheker acquired after they were sold off by
Exxon in 1977. Legally, Marathon's convenience store business was known as
Emro Marketing Company during this period, getting its name from placing an "E" in front of Marathon Oil's
ticker symbol, MRO. Speedway adopted its current logo, known as the "Moving S", in 1982. In 1997, Marathon and
Ashland Petroleum formed Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC (MAP), a joint venture which combined the companies' refining, marketing, and transportation businesses, with Marathon owning 62% of the operations while Ashland owned 38%. In the process, Ashland's
SuperAmerica and Marathon's Speedway convenience store chains were merged to form
Speedway SuperAmerica LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of MAP. At this time, Marathon acquired the rights to the
Solo,
Save Mart,
Save More, and
Rich brands from Ashland, along with others. Many of these brands would be converted to the Speedway brand over time. When the merger was completed in 1998, the Speedway and SuperAmerica brands began to market together. Marathon Ashland also purchased Total Petroleum of
Alma, Michigan, in 1999. The stations, which had been previously owned by
Diamond Shamrock, were mostly in the state of Michigan. Most former Total locations were then rebranded to Marathon, Speedway, or Rich. Speedway acquired the 50-unit Welsh Mart chain of Michigan and Indiana in 2001. This was followed in 2002 by the acquisition of 30 stores from
Grand Rapids, Michigan–based Crystal Flash. In 2003, Marathon sold off Speedway's Southeastern stores to
Sunoco, who promptly converted them to the
A-Plus brand while selling Sunoco fuel, while Speedway's stores in
Western Pennsylvania were sold off to independent owners and converted to standard Marathon stations, withdrawing the Speedway brand from
Pennsylvania and south of
West Virginia and
Kentucky for a decade. Speedway became one of the first convenience store chains in the industry to launch a
loyalty program when it launched Speedy Rewards in 2004. The program was launched almost by accident: Marathon had launched a similar program for its traditional Marathon-branded fuel stations but found inconsistent use among its
franchise owners and felt that the program might work better with Speedway, since all of its locations were owned and operated directly by Marathon. The program has since been ranked by multiple independent publications as being the best loyalty program on the market. In 2005, Marathon purchased Ashland's share of Marathon Ashland Petroleum, which became Marathon Petroleum Company LLC, retaining the SuperAmerica and Rich brands that were originally owned by Ashland. At this time the locations outside the Upper Midwest were converted to Speedway and the SuperAmerica brand was restricted to the Upper Midwest market. Marathon sold SuperAmerica to
Northern Tier Energy, a newly formed company backed by the private equity firms
ACON Investments and
TPG Capital, in February 2011. It is based in
Woodbury, Minnesota. Speedway and SuperAmerica became unrelated chains until seven years later, when Marathon bought
Andeavor, who owns SuperAmerica's parent company
Western Refining. Following the separation of Marathon's
upstream and
downstream operations in 2011, Speedway remained a part of Marathon's downstream operations. In 2001, Speedway's
truck stop chain was merged into the Pilot Travel Centers brand after Marathon and
Pilot Corporation entered into a partnership to form Pilot Travel Centers. Pilot has since bought out Marathon's interest in
Pilot Travel Centers, now
Pilot Flying J. Following its merger with
Hess Corporation's retail chain in 2014, six
WilcoHess locations in
Virginia were rebranded as Pilot locations and jointly operated between Pilot Flying J and Speedway. On June 23, 2016, Pilot Flying J and Speedway announced a new joint venture between the two companies that will see 41 Speedway locations (all former Wilco Hess locations) and 79 Pilot Flying J locations primarily in the
Southeastern United States form
PFJ Southeast LLC. The locations will be operated by Pilot Flying J and the Speedway locations will be rebranded as either Pilot or
Flying J. As of December 9, 2014, 12% of Speedway stores carry
E85 ethanol. Speedway currently has 326 stores with E85 available, and one store which carries
CNG. Almost all of its stores in
Greater Pittsburgh as well as its stores in the state of
Tennessee offer E85, greatly expanding the availability of the fuel in these respective markets.
Expansion since 2012 stations, orange indicates both former Hess stations and states where Speedway was already expanding into organically prior to the Hess purchase, and blue from the former
Andeavor properties, including the
SuperAmerica chain that Speedway owned and operated from 1997 to 2011.
2012–14 expansion On February 13, 2012, it was announced that a deal had been reached with Indiana and Ohio convenience store chain
GasAmerica to acquire all 88 of its locations. Speedway also acquired all trademarks, trade dress and intellectual property from GasAmerica and included several parcels of undeveloped real estate for future development. The transaction was finalized on May 29, 2012, for an unspecified price. On June 5, 2012, it was reported that Speedway LLC signed a deal with the convenience store chain
Road Ranger. The deal gave Speedway nine Road Ranger stores in Kentucky, and one in Ohio, in exchange for cash and a truck stop in the
Chicago metropolitan area.
Rockford, Illinois–based Road Ranger operates approximately 80 truck stop and fuel convenience store locations in seven Midwestern states. Like Speedway before it, Road Ranger has a partnership with Pilot Flying J. In May 2014, Speedway announced they would purchase
Hess Corporation's retail business for $2.6 billion. Hess has 1,342 locations along the Eastern United States. Some Hess stations in the Northeastern United States originated as
Merit Oil stations until Hess bought the company in 2000. The acquisition was completed on October 1, 2014.
Post-Hess expansion On April 30, 2018, Marathon agreed to buy
Andeavor, an independent refinery and oil company based in the Western United States, for $23 billion. On October 1, 2018, the merger was completed. The merger brought all
SuperAmerica locations once again under the ownership of Speedway, but instead of retaining the SuperAmerica brand, it was phased out in favor of the Speedway moniker. The merger also brought the Speedway brand to
California,
Utah and the
American Southwest for the first time, becoming a coast-to-coast chain. On April 16, 2018, it was announced that all 78 Express Mart locations were being re-branded as Speedway locations, which follows Marathon's acquisition of Express Mart, a chain based in
Syracuse, New York, that co-branded with competitors such as Sunoco and Mobil. Speedway and MPC closed on the acquisition of Express Mart in November 2018, after being required by the FTC to divest of five stores. In 2019, they purchased 33 NOCO Express locations in
Western New York. On October 31, Marathon Petroleum has announced the plans of spinning off Speedway into an independent company. On June 6, 2020,
Dunkin' announced plans to close all '''Dunkin' Express''' locations at Speedway locations (which Speedway acquired as part of the acquisition of Hess retail business in 2014), by the end of the year. In 2023, Speedway began gaining national attention when multiple locations that struggle with
crime and
loitering began playing loud
opera music on a 24/7 loop to help deter loitering. The music has received mixed responses and in some cases negative responses from residents and other businesses in the area. On July 19, 2024, Speedway locations that still used
BlueCube and
Radiant Site Manager dating from Marathon's ownership of Speedway were affected by the
2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outages, with some stores unable to accept credit or debit transactions while others were closed outright. Locations that had already switched to 7-Eleven's proprietary RIS system were not affected by the outage.
Other Brands , in 2022. This location closed on July 30, 2024. By the late 1990s, Speedway had consolidated most of its legacy brands under the Speedway banner. However, following several major acquisitions, the company continued to operate a small number of alternative brands—aside from SuperAmerica—primarily at lower‑volume, corporate‑owned locations. The most prominent of these was
Rich, a discount fuel brand originally offered by Ashland. Rich was initially retained after Ashland’s acquisition of SuperAmerica to maintain the validity of the trademark. After the formation of Marathon Ashland Petroleum, the Rich brand was assigned to lower‑volume stores that resembled the earlier Speedway 79 concept. These locations typically offered limited in‑store merchandise such as tobacco, snacks, and beverages, and they did not participate in the Speedy Rewards loyalty program, although they did accept Speedway gift cards. As of 2024, 7‑Eleven has begun phasing out the remaining Rich‑branded locations. Following Marathon Petroleum’s acquisition of
Andeavor, many Andeavor‑supplied stations in California, Alaska, Oregon, and Washington that previously operated with
Mobil,
Shell,
USA Gasoline, or
ARCO–branded forecourts were rebranded as
Speedway Express. These locations retained their independent convenience‑store operations, as the Speedway Express name was applied only to the fuel forecourt. In contrast, company‑owned Andeavor stations were converted into full Speedway stores, reflecting Marathon’s standard branding strategy for corporate-operated sites. Many Speedway Express locations in California and Alaska are operated by Rebel (Anabi Oil.) Speedway Express sites are dealer‑operated, they do not participate in the Speedy Rewards loyalty program, which is limited to corporate Speedway locations. Additionally, Speedway Express locations are not listed in the Speedway or 7-Eleven
mobile apps. ==Separation from Marathon Petroleum and sale to Seven & i Holdings Co., Ltd.==