Great Bend Airport/SRCA Drag Strip

History

The Gasket Blasters Car Club held its first drag race on a half-mile stretch at the north end of the Great Bend Airport on May 17, 1953. Rain spoiled part of the day, but 500 people came. Admission was free, cars were timed with a new device, rolling starts were allowed, and seven trophies were given. A second race on June 7 expected 20 cars. In 1954 the Sunflower Rod and Custom Association formed to run the races, got a timer from the Topeka Timers that measured ETs to 1/1000 second, and planned races every three weeks on the concrete runway. The club joined NHRA in April 1955.

NHRA held its first national championship drag race at Great Bend on September 29-October 2, 1955, before thousands of spectators. Lloyd Scott of Long Beach set an American drag racing speed record of 151 mph in his two-engine “Bustle Bomb,” and Mickey Thompson and Art Chrisman also topped 140. Rain washed out the final day. NHRA promised the 1956 nationals to Great Bend if 3,000 feet of the 8,000-by-100-foot runway was capped with blacktop 75 feet wide. The city council voted $27,000 for the job, but in late March 1956 Wally Parks told them NHRA had picked another site, luckily before work started. That disappointment almost certainly led the club to leave NHRA for the American Hot Rod Association in 1956.

The AHRA national championship ran there on August 31-September 3, 1956, head to head with NHRA’s nationals in Kansas City. A few cars, including the Bean Bandits from San Diego, came over after deciding the Kansas City strip was too short and unsafe. Great Bend drew about 160 cars and 10,000 spectators over the meet, against more than 300 cars at Kansas City. The AHRA nationals came back on August 30-September 2, 1957, with a seven-foot trophy for top eliminator, and Lyle Fisher of Tucson set a track record of 152.80 mph. At the 1958 event Lanny Wilkins was killed on August 31 when he lost control of his modified roadster in the shutdown, rain pushed the final runoffs to September 2, and only about 200 cars entered. Don Garlits won top eliminator at 157.81 mph after running 161.28 in qualifying.

Late in 1958 the association had 2,000 feet of blacktop laid on the strip. Local businesses raised half the cost, $8,000, and the association took on the rest, to be repaid over eight years. In July 1959 an unused three-story air-conditioned control tower replaced the old two-story wooden timing stand. At the fourth AHRA nationals over Labor Day 1959, Art Malone, driving for Don Garlits, set an AHRA low ET record of 8.23 at 179.64 mph but lost the top eliminator runoff to Chris Karamesines. At the fifth, on September 2-5, 1960, Garlits set an AHRA record of 182.54 mph and Bob Sullivan won top eliminator in his “Pandemonium” A/FD at 164.23. Hot Rod’s April 1968 issue listed the SRCA Dragway as NHRA-sanctioned. The strip was named a Kansas State Historical Site in 1994.