ESTA Safety Park Dragstrip (Cicero)
ActiveActive Still racing today.
Family-run NHRA member track north of Syracuse that has operated since 1960 and is still managed by the Simons family. It runs a Sunday Summit E.T. points season and Saturday specials from late spring to October.
- Sammy Miller set a 6.76 at 197.68 MPH track record in a rocket funny car on May 9, 1976
- Don Garlits ran the July 4, 1964 season opener
- Raced
- 1960-present
- State
- New York
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- August 21, 1960
- Sanction
- NHRA Division 1
- Track
- 1/4 mile
- Surface
- Asphalt
- Address
- 8091 Eastwood Road, Cicero, NY
- People
- Empire State Timing Association, manager (1960-)
- Elevation
- 397 ft (121 m)
- Coordinates
- 43.16147, -76.02177
- Contact
- estadrags.com (315) 699-7484
Big races
Halloween Havoc Wally Race
Season-ending race where winners earn a Wally-style trophy, with trick-or-treating for kids in the pits.
Summit Racing E.T. Series (Sundays)
NHRA Summit E.T. points races run on Sundays through the season.
Saturday events and American Muscle Stick Series
Saturday programs including test and tune and the American Muscle Stick Series for manual-transmission cars.
NYS Drag 'N' Drive
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
History
A stock corporation financed this strip on Eastwood Road off Route 31, between Cicero and Bridgeport. Construction was well along by July 1960 on the 3,500-foot asphalt track, which had two 29-foot lanes split by a 20-foot divider. The Empire State Timing Association ran it under NHRA sanction. At the first race, on August 21, 1960, 1,700 spectators watched 100 entries race for trophies in 25 classes, and Bill O’Connor of Brewerton took top eliminator at 13.532 and 101.82 MPH in his 1932 Ford pickup. In 1961 it raced every Sunday through the warm months. Ads in 1964 called it “all new,” so it was probably refurbished for that season, and Don Garlits appeared at the season opener on July 4, 1964. On May 9, 1976, Sammy Miller set a track record of 6.76 at 197.68 MPH in the “Spirit of ‘76” rocket funny car.
Video
![Roger Hughes leaves the starting line in his C/D at E.S.T.A. Safety Park. Photo published in Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, April 29, 1978 [Note: David Wameling wrote DSL: "I’m the guy in the E/A racing Roger. This photo has to be early to mid-1973 as we finished our new chassis prior to the end of the '73 season and this is what we ran in between the original chassis we purchased and the one we built ourselves." The newspaper article where this photo appeared mentioned that Roger Hughes had taken a break from racing for several years. The newspaper must have just pulled the photo from their archives to run with the article and probably dates to about 1973, just as David Wameling explained.]](/photos/cd/cdebeaa01c52ead9741bf9aa280569e2e2144bd9.webp)
