Carrier Field/Owen Airport (Asheville)
Nothing leftNothing left No longer racing, and nothing of the track remains.
- Racers paved 6/10 of a mile of the dirt runway to race on it
- Asheville Motor Speedway was built over the strip
- Raced
- 1959-60
- State
- North Carolina
- What's left
- The site was redeveloped and nothing of the strip remains.
- Raced on
- An airport runway
- First race
- October 4, 1959
- Last race
- 1960
- Track
- 1/8 or 1/4 mile
- Surface
- Paved runway
- Location
- Owen Airport, Asheville
- People
- Asheville Racing Corporation, operator (1959-60)
- Max Wilson, manager
- Bob Furey, manager
- Jim Herrin, manager
- Dr. J.E. Owens, manager
- Elevation
- 1,979 ft (603 m)
- Coordinates
- 35.56617, -82.57882
This small general aviation field, first called Carrier Field, was built between 1946 and 1948 and was unpaved until the Asheville Racing Corporation arranged to race there and paved 6/10 of a mile of runway. The first race at Owen Airport was October 4, 1959. Races ran every Sunday in fifteen classes, timed over an eighth or a quarter mile, with no dragsters allowed. Stands eventually seated 4,100. Max Wilson, Bob Furey, Jim Herrin and Dr. J.E. Owens managed the strip, and planes used the runway when there was no racing. In 1960 work began on a dirt 4/10-mile oval that the drag strip cut through. The first plan had put the oval between the strip and the French Broad River, but that changed. The oval didn’t get in the way of the 1960 drags, but once it was paved, drag racing ended. By 1964 the airport and strip were gone, with Asheville Motor Speedway built over the western end of the runway.
