Artesia Municipal Airport
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Complaints ended airport racing within a month of the first race in 1954
- Raced
- 1954, 1957
- State
- New Mexico
- What's left
- A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
- Raced on
- An airport runway
- First race
- September 26, 1954
- Track
- 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 mile
- Surface
- Runway
- Location
- Artesia Municipal Airport
- People
- Pacers car club, organizer (1957)
- Elevation
- 3,538 ft (1,078 m)
- Coordinates
- 32.85244, -104.47130
The first Pecos Valley drag race ran at Artesia Municipal Airport on September 26, 1954, with trophies in several classes at quarter, half and three-quarter mile distances. Complaints about the racing led officials to ban it from the airport in mid-October 1954. In February 1956 two clubs, the Road Kings of Artesia and the Carlsbad Hot Rod Club, asked the Civil Aeronautics Administration for permission to race there again. No newspaper report of a race followed, so the request was apparently turned down. The Pacers car club of Artesia reportedly held the first race at their own drag strip on June 23, 1957. Newspapers didn’t say where it was, but the airport is the likely spot.