Trends In Our Sport

[Mike Carr]

Bret, how about Pennsylvania tracks? As best as Dad and I can come up with, there were fourteen tracks that ran, at one time, in PA. Six are still running.

1. Maple Grove
2. Numidia
3. Beaver Springs
4. South Mountain/Quarter Aces
5. Pittsburgh Raceway Park (Keystone)
6. Lucky's Dragway (Erie)

The eight that closed:
1. Sunset Raceway (Mercer)
2. Skyline DRagway (New Castle)
3. New Bethlehem
4. Peterson Memorial (Altoona/Tyronne)
5. York US 30
6. Pittsburgh Int'l Dragway (Cecil)
7. Pocono Drag Lodge
8. Vargo Dragway (Perkesie)

Ohio and WV we could only come up with three each that closed. In Ohio, Howland, Meander and one up by Toledo, Glass City?). WV Fairmont/Eldora, Princeton, and Winfield. I'm sure there are more, in each state, those are just the ones we could remember (many closed before I was born in 1979, sadly).

[rawhide]

My reference to the 25 tracks in South Carolina was taken from a book called "The History of America's Speedways" written by Allan E. Brown and was printed in 2003. He has a newer version out but I do not have it in my collection yet. I see several of the tracks have had two or three names but my count was just the physical locations. Mr. Brown probably gets to add tracks each time he releases a new edition. My copy is a third edition. Bret has the most knowledge about the history of drag racing of anyone I know about and he most likely raced at all of them, even when they were drag racing horses and mules.
Roland

[Ronnie Smith Jr]

Originally Posted by Mike Carr

Ohio and WV we could only come up with three each that closed. In Ohio, Howland, Meander and one up by Toledo, Glass City?). WV Fairmont/Eldora, Princeton, and Winfield. I'm sure there are more, in each state, those are just the ones we could remember (many closed before I was born in 1979, sadly).

One that I know of in Ohio was Riverside (Proctorville, across the river from Huntington). Went there as a kid and have great memories of it. Another one in WV was Raleigh County (Beckley). I'm not sure if Fort Gay is still running - also known as the 100 yard dash. Originally a sand drag and truck pulling track that converted to asphalt drags (at the same distance).

[Tom Goldman]

Originally Posted by Mike Carr

Bret, how about Pennsylvania tracks? As best as Dad and I can come up with, there were fourteen tracks that ran, at one time, in PA. Six are still running.

1. Maple Grove
2. Numidia
3. Beaver Springs
4. South Mountain/Quarter Aces
5. Pittsburgh Raceway Park (Keystone)
6. Lucky's Dragway (Erie)

The eight that closed:
1. Sunset Raceway (Mercer)
2. Skyline DRagway (New Castle)
3. New Bethlehem
4. Peterson Memorial (Altoona/Tyronne)
5. York US 30
6. Pittsburgh Int'l Dragway (Cecil)
7. Pocono Drag Lodge
8. Vargo Dragway (Perkesie)

Ohio and WV we could only come up with three each that closed. In Ohio, Howland, Meander and one up by Toledo, Glass City?). WV Fairmont/Eldora, Princeton, and Winfield. I'm sure there are more, in each state, those are just the ones we could remember (many closed before I was born in 1979, sadly).

Add to the closed in my lifetime in PA. , Vultee Airport [Allentown] ,Allentown Fairgrounds, Wind Gap , KelReca, Hatfield, and recently, I heard ,Quarter Aces.

[Bob Bender]

Tom, dont forget Reading Fairgrounds.

[Bret Kepner]

Guys, your numbers are far from reality. Pennsylvania alone has had over sixty dragstrips.

Roland, Allan Brown was the first to make an effort to accurately chronicle all North American racetracks. He was a pioneer who archived a phenomenal amount of information prior to electronic gathering techniques. Allan retired almost a decade ago after printing three editions of his original book; the last was published in November, 2003.

I met Allan several times and he's a fantastic guy. Unfortunately, he was never a big drag racing fan, (although he enjoyed the sport), and his final listing, while impressive, included drastically fewer drag strips than were actually in operation over the years.

Almost twenty years ago, I formed a consortium to precisely locate, confirm, research, chronicle and archive all of 'em. The effort demands the hours of a full-time job each week and requires a massive effort from the members of a very small group. Our project isn't a hobby. It's a lifelong ordeal; it's a commitment to which we have each made huge sacrifices. It's no different than campaigning a Stocker every week of the year.

We take this project seriously, (excruciatingly so). We can never finacially recoup our investment and, therefore, have set a simple goal of making sure the information is available to people in the future. I'm not talking decades in the future. I'm referring to CENTURIES in the future.

There is no "web site". There is no "e-mail list". There is no FaceBook page. We owe no free information to anybody in this pursuit. Those who have assisted us receive our undying thanks and many, many people have assisted us.

I never meant my original response to Gary Smith to become a "Name Those Tracks" thread. He wondered about the data progression over the sport's first sixty-five years and I offered a response proving, as James Perrone noted, "the sky isn't falling".

Nothing more. Nothing less.

[Nitro Joe Jackson]

I agree with Bret 100%, but I have been around for a bit also.

[Michael Beard]

Originally Posted by Mike Carr

Bret, how about Pennsylvania tracks? As best as Dad and I can come up with, there were fourteen tracks that ran, at one time, in PA. Six are still running.

1. Maple Grove
2. Numidia
3. Beaver Springs
4. South Mountain/Quarter Aces
5. Pittsburgh Raceway Park (Keystone)
6. Lucky's Dragway (Erie)

The eight that closed:
1. Sunset Raceway (Mercer)
2. Skyline DRagway (New Castle)
3. New Bethlehem
4. Peterson Memorial (Altoona/Tyronne)
5. York US 30
6. Pittsburgh Int'l Dragway (Cecil)
7. Pocono Drag Lodge
8. Vargo Dragway (Perkesie)

Ohio and WV we could only come up with three each that closed. In Ohio, Howland, Meander and one up by Toledo, Glass City?). WV Fairmont/Eldora, Princeton, and Winfield. I'm sure there are more, in each state, those are just the ones we could remember (many closed before I was born in 1979, sadly).

Other PA tracks: Green Pine (no idea where this was, just heard a number of the older guys talking about it when I was a kid... ok, after searching for it, says it was around Williamsport) and Kremer, which was pretty close to Beaver Springs. Chicken coops there now, as I understand it. I think I've actually been past it, but it is unrecognizable. My dad raced his street '70 Dart 340 4spd there once. Said it had a dirt shutdown area, and not much of it! I think there was a motorcycle dragstrip in the Reading area as well.

Here's an interesting page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lost-...26629034080783