Corry Field (Pensacola)

Corry Field was a Navy training field built west of Pensacola in 1927, and Navy use ended in mid-1958. Starting in 1959, Pensacola’s Fiesta of Five Flags celebration held sports car races there from time to time. The Fiesta’s drag races had been at the Pensacola Drag Strip on Klondike Road through 1965, skipped 1966, and moved to Corry Field in 1967. That race had NHRA sanction and a $2,000 purse and brought in big names including Chuck Griffith with his Starlight top fuel dragster, Bobby Langley, Phil Bonner and Bruce Larson. Griffith beat Langley in their match race at 7.77 and 195.76 mph, and George Warren of Phenix City, Alabama won super stock eliminator in his Chevy II for $375. A two-day NHRA points meet ran June 1-2, 1968, followed by a fish fry at the track put on by the Hadji Shrine Temple. Clayton Harris won top fuel and $500 at 8.70 and 167.91 mph, and Preston Davis, who blew an engine against him in the final, had the meet’s top speed at 7.74 and 203.16 mph. Cliff Smith of New Orleans won top gas in his AA/GD at 7.92 and 188.28 mph. Doug Rose ran exhibitions in his Green Mamba jet dragster at the 1969 Fiesta races, with a best of 235 mph. The last Fiesta drag race at Corry Field was in 1970.