Akron Municipal Airport

Drag racing at the Akron Airport was going well by at least 1952, with strong support from airport manager B. E. “Shorty” Fulton. Races ran on a two-lane concrete service road on the east edge of the airport, between the landing field and the Rubber Bowl, beside the Goodyear Flying Club hangar and just west of the main tower. The city took 15 percent of the gate as rent for the closed-off road. Neal held the strip record that first season at 91 mph in his 1932 Ford (Hot Rod, September 1952, pages 36-37, has early photos). The second season opened May 3, 1953, and several thousand people came to an August 23, 1953 race with competitors from seven states. The Cam Jammers car club sponsored the races.

The 1954 season began April 4, with meets every third Sunday, and an NHRA regional on August 8, 1954, drew 164 entries (Hot Rod, November 1954, pages 24-27). In 1955 the races grossed $16,000, leaving the Cam Jammers about $1,500 after expenses, which went to new timing equipment and members’ travel to national races. Fourteen races ran in 1956, and the first two each drew nearly 4,000 people. A fan who saw his first drag races there around 1956-57, at 15 or 16, remembered Art Arfons’s Green Monster, the ‘55 and ‘56 Chevys of Ed Schartman and Ron Hassel in the gas classes, and Otie Smith’s AA/Fuel Altered roadster, and said he was hooked for life.

The Cam Jammers opened the 1959 season on May 10 with 270 cars, and Arfons ran 142 mph and 9.76 seconds in the Green Monster. Races followed on June 21 and July 12, with an NHRA championship meet on August 22-23. The last race, on October 4, 1959, was run with help from the Akron Road Gents. Racing at the airport was then banned, making 1959 the final season.