Jim Hale

[Bimbo Jones]

It was the south part of LR almost to Benton on the west side of I-30. I heard in the early days of operation they actually ran 1/4 there. It had a hanger carport pullout near the finish line for a small plane. When they ran Comp Eliminator all the racers would sit at the end of the track until all had ran and drive back on the racing surface. They had a return road paved with roofing tabs and would high center most race cars. The pit area was enteresting as well. You had to park your trailer at bottom of the hill and would pit behind the starting line with only tools and stuff you brought up from your rig. It was the first 1/8th mile track I had ever seen.

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by Bimbo Jones

It was the south part of LR almost to Benton on the west side of I-30. I heard in the early days of operation they actually ran 1/4 there. It had a hanger carport pullout near the finish line for a small plane. When they ran Comp Eliminator all the racers would sit at the end of the track until all had ran and drive back on the racing surface. They had a return road paved with roofing tabs and would high center most race cars. The pit area was enteresting as well. You had to park your trailer at bottom of the hill and would pit behind the starting line with only tools and stuff you brought up from your rig. It was the first 1/8th mile track I had ever seen.

Sounds like the place. first 1/8th mile track I had seen also. Across I30, I believe, was (is?) the dirt track where I ran my sprint car a few times in the '80s.

[Bimbo Jones]

Yeah thats it Ed. I didn't think much of it at the time and was just thankful to have drag strip operating. Now 1/8 mile is about all I do and like it more than quater mile. It makes my slow stuff feel like I'm going faster.

[bill dedman]

That Little Rock strip was a quarter mile racetrack from the git-go; opened in 1960, I believe (could be wrong about that) but it was still a quarter-mile facility when I moved away in 1964. After that, I have no information.... I was in Des Moines.

Vance Hunt used to bring his fueler up from Dallas, frequently, with J.L. Payne at the wheel and make 180+mph runs... Eddie Hill ran there a lot, too... The shutdown surface was GRAVEL..... I'm not kidding.

Jimmy Camp and Tom Burris both lost their lives in cars (a B/SR and a B/A) that couldn't stop, and ran headlong into trees at the end of the strip.

Guess that's why the 1/8th mile thing came about.

[Adger Smith]

Bill,
Who was the guy that had the AA/fuel Weenie Roaster roadster. Seems like he had a meet packing company... Mike Heim?? I saw him there once or twice. I know I saw him at Carlisle. Wasn't there a Watus Simpson that drove for Vance, too... I don't know how many feet it was from I-30 to the top of the hill, but it always looked pretty high. It was an odd thing to go by there during the week and see a Cessna sitting on top of the hill getting ready to take off. Didn't Tom Parker start up a small track over at the fair grounds? That was probably 20 years ago.. Time flies...

[Bimbo Jones]

Back when National Dragster was worth reading I would read it from cover to cover for anything referring to a Arkansas driver. Jim Hale was one those names I would see quite often and quickly became one of my favorites.

[Dwight Southerland]

RE: Little Rock Drag Strip

Bill - The shutdown area was completely paved in 1965. Actually, only the last 100 feet or so was gravel. The end of the dragstrip intersected a county road and there was originally concern about race cars running off the end and into passing traffic because the shutdown was a little short. Mostly that was just talk because how much traffic do you have on a Sunday afternoon in the 1960s on a county road? I saw somebody run 191 mph in a fuel dragster there and stop before the end, so it wasn't too short. If they had been able to cut down the trees on the other side of the county road, that would have made it a lot safer because there was an open field beyond the tree line. The farmer may have lost a cow or two, but what the hey - fresh meat for the concession stand!

That was the first place I saw S.E. Buchanan. He was driving a '50 model Ford with a blown SBC backed by a four-speed that was owned by two guys in LR who owned a foreign car repair shop - Elrod & Roper. That is our buddy Bobby Roper who raced the A/SA Camaro for years in recent times.

I saw lots of SS match races there and lots of fuel cars. Vance Hines, Bobby Langley, Eddie Hill, etc. There were two locals with AA/FA cars, Mike Heim and O.D. Brazil, who regularly put on wild match races. O.D. later had a Top Fuel car that did reasonable well for such a low funded effort

The track was shut down around 1970 because of business developments and encroaching population. Tom Parker leased it and opened in in 1973 or 74 as an 1/8 mile track. It became one of my "home" tracks along with Carlisle. I personally love the 1/8 mile racing. It tests your concentration in a four-speed car though. Lots less wear and tear on the engine and the races happen with such frequency that the spectator excitement is easy to maintain. In the late 1970s and early 1980s there were several Pro Stock match races there, including Reher & Morrison, the Marriott Bros., etc.

[Carl Weisinger]

I've had the pleasure of racing against Jim quite a few times and he is one of the gentlemen of the sport. Not much better compliment among southerners than to just
simply say "he's a good ole boy".

[bill dedman]

Originally Posted by Dwight Southerland

RE: Little Rock Drag Strip

Bill - The shutdown area was completely paved in 1965. Actually, only the last 100 feet or so was gravel. The end of the dragstrip intersected a county road and there was originally concern about race cars running off the end and into passing traffic because the shutdown was a little short. Mostly that was just talk because how much traffic do you have on a Sunday afternoon in the 1960s on a county road? I saw somebody run 191 mph in a fuel dragster there and stop before the end, so it wasn't too short. If they had been able to cut down the trees on the other side of the county road, that would have made it a lot safer because there was an open field beyond the tree line. The farmer may have lost a cow or two, but what the hey - fresh meat for the concession stand!

That was the first place I saw S.E. Buchanan. He was driving a '50 model Ford with a blown SBC backed by a four-speed that was owned by two guys in LR who owned a foreign car repair shop - Elrod & Roper. That is our buddy Bobby Roper who raced the A/SA Camaro for years in recent times.

I saw lots of SS match races there and lots of fuel cars. Vance Hines, Bobby Langley, Eddie Hill, etc. There were two locals with AA/FA cars, Mike Heim and O.D. Brazil, who regularly put on wild match races. O.D. later had a Top Fuel car that did reasonable well for such a low funded effort

The track was shut down around 1970 because of business developments and encroaching population. Tom Parker leased it and opened in in 1973 or 74 as an 1/8 mile track. It became one of my "home" tracks along with Carlisle. I personally love the 1/8 mile racing. It tests your concentration in a four-speed car though. Lots less wear and tear on the engine and the races happen with such frequency that the spectator excitement is easy to maintain. In the late 1970s and early 1980s there were several Pro Stock match races there, including Reher & Morrison, the Marriott Bros., etc.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++
Dwight, thanks for the history lesson on the area's drag strips during the period after I left the state. I wasn't aware that they ever paved that shutdown area at tha Little Rock strip. That was something that should have been done at the outset...

I was involved in that blown Chevy gasser of Roper's to the extent that I owned the HydraMatic in it. I was a big fan of Pitman-Edwards and Stone/Woods/Cook during those years, and had run a normally-aspirated B Gasser, myself, with an Olds/Hydro powertrain and liked the consistency and reliability of those transmissions, so when Bobby put a blower on that Chevy, I took him a "built" Hydro and talked him into ballasting the car down to C/GS, and he liked the car that way. Lowell Elrod (the regular driver) had some health issues, and S.E. was available, so he took over the driving chores, as Bobby's heart doctor had said that his problems with arrhythmia wouldn't be helped by driving an 11-second car. It was a 4-speed, for sure, but an "automatic" 4-speed.


I never was acquainted with Tom Parker when I lived in Arkansas; I guess I must have moved away before he became involved it the local "promotional" scene. He was pretty much involved in that Fairgrounds strip, and told me about their hopes for a new strip on that same parcel of land, to the West (over by the fence.) Too bad that never materialized. I never heard why...

[bill dedman]

Originally Posted by Adger Smith

Bill,
Who was the guy that had the AA/fuel Weenie Roaster roadster. Seems like he had a meet packing company... Mike Heim?? I saw him there once or twice. I know I saw him at Carlisle. Wasn't there a Watus Simpson that drove for Vance, too... I don't know how many feet it was from I-30 to the top of the hill, but it always looked pretty high. It was an odd thing to go by there during the week and see a Cessna sitting on top of the hill getting ready to take off. Didn't Tom Parker start up a small track over at the fair grounds? That was probably 20 years ago.. Time flies...

Yes, Mike Heim owned a few pretty formidable drag cars over a period of years; first a street roadster with Chevy power (the one that Jimmy Camp died in, I believe, on opening day of the new Little Rock strip) and several Chevy-then-Pontiac powered supercharged 20-percent engine setback altered/roadsters, that pioneered the high engine placement for weight transfer benefits, and finally, a Top Fuel car called "The Pusher."

They had some elevated pits at that strip, that were on the same level as the strip, for the really fast cars, so driving "up the hill" to the "upper pits" was not required for the diggers, et al.

You're right; Watus Simpdon did drive for Vance, and a guy named Bob Coleman also, I believe, at one time.

I was not here when Tom Parker started that Little Rock "Fairgrounds" strip, but it was still in operation (barely) when I moved back to Arkansas from California, in 2004. I ran my car there a few times, but it was an eighth-mile facility with a "death-trap" shutdown area that included an off-camber CURVE and a trip into the hog barn, if you didn't have EXCELLENT brakes! It's a miracle nobody was ever killed there.

Mike had a friendly running feud with O.D. Brail, the strip manager at Carlisle (AR), for Middle Eliminator supremacy in Arkansas, as O.D. campigned a similar, but blown Chrysler, Hemi-powered Altered that had a spot on Drag News' Standard 1320 list, and was killer-fast. They traded wins, back and forth. Mike's Top Fuel effort came after I left Arkansas, so I never got to see it run.
An updated facility on that same site was stillborn...

Arkansas has NO quarter-mile racing, as of now.)