Beardstown Drag Strip

This strip sat out in the country southeast of Beardstown, in a farmer’s backyard as one longtime racer put it. One online source dates it to the 1950s, but research points to 1967. Reports of the opening race on May 14, 1967, called it the Seward Drag Strip on the Arenzville road. Larry “Pooch” Steward owned it. Two thousand people came to the opener, cars were parked on both sides of the entrance on Arenzville Road for more than a mile, and admission was $1.50. The next week’s race drew an even bigger crowd, and AHRA sanctioned the track by late 1967.

Top fuel and funny car driver Tommy Johnson, Jr. spent every weekend at the drag strip with his parents as a kid, and his earliest memories are of Beardstown. He remembered a sandy pit area by a couple of grain silos and sitting in his father’s car pretending to race when he was two or three. Once, after being told not to break anything, he snapped the line lock button off the shifter, and he said he’s been nervous about anyone sitting in his car ever since.

On October 22, 1967, Fred Gibb and Herb Fox set an AHRA national record at Beardstown with their “Little Hoss” FS/X Camaro. The track hosted an AHRA Grand American points race on August 4, 1968. Kenny Dobson managed it from the late 1960s and bought it in 1972, running it under AHRA sanction. Dale Hilgenbrinck, who raced there, thinks it closed in the late 1970s or early 1980s.