Augusta International Speedway/Dragway (Hephzibah)

Planning for a large motorsports complex thirteen miles southwest of Augusta in Hephzibah began in 1959. Augusta International Raceway was Bob Burson’s idea, and he partnered with Marshall Spray to build it. The finished complex had a road course, a quarter-mile drag strip, a paved half-mile oval, an eighth-mile micro track, a motocross track and a kart track.

An NHRA divisional drag race ran on a finished straight of the speedway in 1960 (Hot Rod, October 1960, p. 39), and drag races were held every Sunday that year. Goodman Bare’s injected Chevy was among the dragsters at a speedway race on May 7, 1961, and Walt Arfons’s “Green Monster” jet dragster headlined a full program on June 18, 1961. The drag strip itself, Augusta Dragway, ran east-west at the north end of the complex and was ready in January 1962 under NASCAR sanction. Arfons ran 226 mph in his jet dragster that first year. The Georgia State Championship races were held June 30, 1963. Doyle Stansell was drag strip director, and in 1963 he and Buster Carmen leased the track for drag racing. The complex ran until 1969, but very little is known about the drag strip.