Carlisle Drag Strip

Racing at Carlisle started in 1958. At an April 13, 1958 race, 3,000 spectators watched more than 200 cars and motorcycles, and Billy Davis took top eliminator at 119 mph on his gas-burning Triumph motorcycle, also winning top fuel on his fuel-burning Triumph. In 1959 the Arkansas Timing Association raced on the second Sunday of each month. That January a Camden high school senior argued his town should have a drag strip, since Carlisle had one and wasn’t half Camden’s size, and said city and state police supervised the Carlisle strip. Lance Miller, who watched races there in the 1960s and 1970s, remembered an airport outside town used by crop dusters during the week and for racing on weekends. That’s almost certainly today’s Carlisle Municipal Airport, just northeast of Carlisle.

On May 8, 1960, Red Dyer drove Ray Godman’s “Tennessee Boll Weevil” A/MR to a national record of 160.5 mph, eight mph better than the old mark. A month later, on June 12, Johnny Albright raised it to 171.1 mph in the same roadster. Carlisle was NHRA-sanctioned in 1961, racing on the second Sunday of the month. On April 14, 1963, Paul Brower set a speed mark of 159.28 mph driving O. D. Brazil’s blown Chrysler-powered A roadster. By 1967 the NHRA strip was open February through October. The Arkansas State Championship drag races were held there on October 26, 1975. One old-timer remembered hearing ads for Carlisle every weekend through the ’60s and ’70s on radio station KAAY. Nothing has turned up after 1975, though racer Teddy Stoll clearly remembered racing there in 1977.