Unnamed drag strip (Brainard)

Status unknown

Also known as Short Block Sweepstakes

Part of the Old Home Town Festival, with antique tractor drag races alongside cars
Had a class for tractors built before 1923

Raced: 1963-68
State: Nebraska
What's left: The exact spot was never found. If it's on the map, the pin only marks the general area.
Raced on: A public road
First race: 1963
Track: one city block
Surface: Paved street in 1963, dirt street from 1964
Location: Brainard city streets, including a block next to the railroad tracks
Elevation: 1,662 ft (506 m)
Coordinates: 41.18524, -97.00716

The Short Block Sweepstakes drag races started in 1963 as part of Brainard’s Old Home Town Festival. There was regular drag racing, at least in 1964, but the tractor contests were a big part of the fun, including an unusual class for tractors built before 1923. Frank Stoupa won that one in 1963 in his Hart Parr. The tractors raced over a measured short block on a Brainard street. In 1964 they moved to a dirt street, because racing on pavement the year before had about shaken the drivers off their tractors. In 1965 Frank Rech won the antique class on the measured block next to the railroad tracks, taking one minute 50 seconds in his 1919 Rumley Oil Pull. In 1968 Gib Horacek won Class A, where modifications were allowed, covering the 250 distance in 16 seconds in his 1923 C-Case.

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