Bremerton Airport/Raceway

History

Drag races started on a little-used runway at Kitsap County Airport, now Bremerton National Airport, eight miles southwest of Bremerton. The Navy used the airport during World War II. The Handlers Car Club leased it in 1959 and began sponsoring the racing, and the Handlers Racing Association has renewed the lease every year since. The August 1960 Hot Rod listed races once or twice a month, run by the King County Youth Auto Council. A 1968 issue of the Swedish magazine Start & Strip called it Bremerton Drag Strip, and H. M. Petersen was track manager in 1969.

One old-timer said the races used a taxiway for years before getting the abandoned runway. Once on the runway, the return road ran down the right side of it, separated from the race lanes only by traffic cones, until NHRA stopped that in the late 1970s or early 1980s and the taxiway became the return road. Later NHRA ruled the return road couldn’t pass through the spectator area, so a separate return road was paved left of the runway and jersey barriers went up, with insurance requirements a big factor. John Flesher, a founding member of the Handlers, remembered racing on Saturday nights in 1960-61 with two generators and a quarter mile of 100-watt bulbs, which he and Sam Fitz wound up after every race. Lights, poles, fences and barriers all had to be removed after each event, since nothing over a foot high was allowed near the strip while it served as an emergency landing area. That is still true, and the track is one of the last in the country that sets up and tears down everything for each race.