Corpus Christi Drag Raceway

Jimmy Adair, a wealthy sportsman who owned nine corporations, began building a multi-million-dollar racing complex at Cuddihy Field in 1969, and the strip was sometimes called Cuddihy Raceway. The airstrip, seven miles southwest of Corpus Christi, was built in 1943 and had a 5,000-foot asphalt runway 100 feet wide. Plans called for a horse track, drag boat course, oval and drag strip. The drag strip came first, a north-south quarter-mile under NHRA sanction with the circle track to the east. Adair wanted a glass-enclosed, air-conditioned movable grandstand for 800, with a dance floor, raised bandstand and short-order kitchen, plus covered movable bleachers, all of which could shift between the venues. The track had the world’s only mobile timing tower. The opener, an NHRA divisional points meet on May 17-18, 1969, drew more than 300 entries and 8,200 spectators on the second day. Bennie Osborn won top eliminator at 6.92 and 211.76 MPH, and Watus Simpson of Arlington, driving for Vance Hunt, had low ET at 6.91 and 212.24 MPH. The track ran under AHRA sanction in 1970-71 and IHRA in 1972, when it hosted a two-day world points and record meet on April 29-30. In 1975 Gary Watson, the wheelstanding showman behind the “Paddy Wagon,” leased the track and promoted it, booking Shirley Muldowney and Tommy Ivo for a match race on March 2, 1975. He didn’t renew the lease for 1978, so 1977 was the last season.