Emporia Dragway

Little has been found about this strip beyond a few old-timers’ memories and some news stories. Races ran every Sunday in 1962 under NHRA sanction. On January 5, 1964, Ronnie Sox set new track marks at an NHRA meet with 11.30 seconds and 127.78 MPH in his ‘64 Comet. Skip Holbert, a Navy man stationed in Newport News, about 75 miles away, crewed at Emporia in 1964 for a shipmate he’d gone to Connecticut Dragway with while both were at Nuclear Power School in Windsor Locks. The friend raced a 1964 Fairlane with the Hi Performance 289. At Emporia they ran against factory-sponsored Fairlanes whose owners didn’t have to drive them home and to work every day. Holbert’s friend wouldn’t push his engine to the limit, so they lost every week, though Holbert said just being part of a race car was exciting. The strip may have run after 1967, but the record dries up there. It appeared in a 1968 list of 325 U.S. drag strips in the Swedish magazine Start & Strip. The races were most likely held on the old airfield three miles east of Emporia, now Emporia-Greensville Regional Airport.