Buccaneer Drag Strip (Fernandina Beach)

This strip opened under NASCAR sanction on February 12, 1961, on a runway at Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport. Arnie Beswick, who came to Florida to get away from Iowa winters, raced here several times that first year. The Goethe-Crawford twin-engine dragster set the 1961 track record at 154 mph. Nick Smith managed the track around 1963-64. On August 11, 1963, Bob Tucker topped a field of fifteen stockers in his aluminum-bodied ‘63 Chevy, though some of the Southeast’s best stock racers stayed away after a dispute over classes. On September 24 he won again, beating Hubert Platt in the final at 11.25 and 122 mph, and he beat Platt again in a three-out-of-five match race on February 9, 1964. At Buccaneer, Tucker had Platt’s number. At a gas dragster meet in that period, Pete Robinson set a strip record of 173.07 mph and 8.44 seconds. The track became Fernandina Dragway in 1964. Its last year and which runway it used haven’t been pinned down.