Detroit Dragway

Gilbert Kohn was the driving force behind Detroit Dragway, and his mother, Mayme Kohn, paid to build it. Gil was only 23. The 4,100-foot strip sat in the middle of a 75-acre parcel in Brownstown Township on Detroit’s southwest edge. It opened in late August 1959 and ran seven days a week, from 7 p.m. to midnight every night and during the day on Sundays. Kohn talked NHRA into holding its 5th National Championships there in the first year.

The Nationals ran September 3-7, 1959 with 783 entries. Rodney Singer of Houston won top eliminator in his blown Lincoln dragster with a string of 9.70s and took home a new El Camino. Art Arfons had top speed of the meet at 172.08 mph in his Allison-powered Green Monster II, on gasoline, since NHRA still banned fuel. That event made Detroit a destination for drag racers for a couple of decades. The 1960 U.S. Nationals were held there too. Leonard Harris of Playa Del Rey, California, won top eliminator with a 9.25 in the final in his Olds-powered A dragster, and George Montgomery became the first two-time Nationals winner by defending his 1959 Little Eliminator title in his Cadillac-powered A/GS Willys. The next year the Nationals moved to the new Indianapolis Raceway Park, where they’ve stayed.

On May 29, 1963, Chuck Hatcher crashed Walt Arfons’ ‘Wingfoot Express’ jet car into the wall at the end of the strip during test runs ahead of a land speed record attempt at Bonneville. On July 12, 1964, Don Garlits ran 200.44 mph for a Drag News 1320 record. He considered it the first legitimate 200 mph run, saying earlier ones, including some of his own, came at strips where the clocks were known to be off. Detroit switched from NHRA to AHRA by 1967, stayed through 1970, went to the United Hot Rod Association in 1971, and went back to AHRA in 1975.