Dover Drag Strip (Wingdale)
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Don Garlits set the 192 MPH track record before 1964
- Lost NHRA sanction after about a year over safety concerns
- Raced
- 1961-76
- State
- New York
- What's left
- You can still spot it in aerial photos, or broken pieces of the track surface remain.
- On the site today
- Only the return road remains
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- May 14, 1961
- Location
- Wingdale
- People
- Chet Anderson, owner and builder (1961)
- Joe Archiere, partner and builder (1961)
- Sanction
- NHRA
- Elevation
- 450 ft (137 m)
- Coordinates
- 41.65145, -73.58445
Chet Anderson bought 144 acres of farmland in Wingdale and partnered with Joe Archiere to build a drag strip. Dover opened on May 14, 1961, with the Danbury Modifiers car club running the race, and filled the gap left when Montgomery Airstrip closed. The track billed itself as the “smoothest, fastest drag strip in the East.” By 1964 it had replaced the flag starter with a Christmas tree. In one early newspaper report, James Hoellerich of the Hoosac Valley Motorcycle Club won top eliminator at 13.37 and 101 MPH on July 22, 1962. Tom DeLello remembered Billy and Bobby Lagana as the fast guys in the early years. Don Garlits raced at Dover four times and set the 192 MPH track record before 1964. Dover had NHRA sanction for just one year, around 1967, because of safety concerns. The return road is the only piece of the track still visible.
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