Fayetteville Drag Strip (Highway 301 South)
Status unknownStatus unknown Closed, but nobody has checked how much of the site survives, or the exact spot was never found.
- Raced
- 1958-66
- State
- North Carolina
- What's left
- How much of the site survives hasn't been checked yet.
- On the site today
- Cemetery
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- January 1958
- Last race
- 1966 (last documented)
- Track
- 5,000 feet (reported)
- Surface
- Dirt, then paved in 1958
- Location
- Just northeast of US 301 and Airport Road, three miles south of Fayetteville, northwest of the airport
- People
- Sanford Cam Snappers, race operator (1959)
- Fayetteville Rod Burners, race operator (1959)
- Elevation
- 193 ft (59 m)
- Coordinates
- 35.00251, -78.89655
Fayetteville had two drag strips. Tim Davis pointed out this first one, just northeast of US 301 and Airport Road, three miles south of town and northwest of the airport. The later Fayetteville strip is southeast of the airport on Doc Bennett Road. Davis said in 2024 that a cemetery now occupies the original site. The strip opened on dirt in January 1958. By the third race, February 2, half of it was paved, and the rest was to be paved the next week, weather permitting. More than 600 spectators watched 72 racers in nine classes that day, and Lennie House and Herbert Weeks, both of Clinton, had top speed at 91 MPH. In 1959 the Sanford Cam Snappers and Fayetteville Rod Burners car clubs ran the races. Ronnie Butler won at 107.42 MPH in Jack Strader’s ‘61 Pontiac Super Stock on April 21, 1961. The track was refurbished in 1965 and raced every Sunday, with ads saying it was designed for stock car classes. News reports often placed it behind the airport and said it was 5,000 feet long. Newspaper coverage ends in 1966, and the closing date hasn’t been found.
Background
The strip's neighbor, Fayetteville Regional Airport (also called Grannis Field), is city-owned and three nautical miles south of downtown. It's a commercial service airport with two runways and separate terminals for airline and general aviation traffic.
