Fonda Speedway
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Shirley Muldowney began her drag racing career here in 1958
- Head starts were given in feet or car lengths
- Raced
- 1957-68
- State
- New York
- What's left
- A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
- Raced on
- At an oval speedway
- First race
- 1957
- Last race
- 1968
- Track
- 1/8 mile (1957-58), 1/4 mile (1959-68)
- Location
- Infield of the Fonda Speedway oval, Montgomery County Fairgrounds
- Sanction
- NASCAR
- Elevation
- 286 ft (87 m)
- Coordinates
- 42.95245, -74.36778
A half-mile dirt oval was built at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in 1927. In 1957 and 1958 an eighth-mile drag strip ran down the oval’s infield, with the shutdown leading onto turn four. A quarter-mile strip opened on May 20, 1959 and ran through 1968, under NASCAR sanction from at least 1961. Shirley Muldowney started her drag racing career at Fonda in 1958. A woman who went often remembered Wednesday drags and Saturday stock cars, and seeing “Cha Cha” Muldowney hit a pole one Wednesday night and split her Corvette in half. Muldowney walked away limping but was okay. Another fan, who started going around 1963-64 before he could drive, said Muldowney raced there every week with a cheeky saying on the side of her car. He remembered the strip running down the middle of the oval with little room to stop, and head starts given in feet or car lengths instead of on the clock.
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