Green Valley Raceway (North Richland Hills)

Bill McClure opened this strip on his dairy farm in 1960, two miles north of Smithfield in Tarrant County, despite what one popular source says. Later articles placed it in North Richland Hills because Smithfield was annexed into that city in 1958. To get there you took Highway 121 to Farm Road 1938, now Davis Boulevard, and followed the signs. A 1963 aerial photo shows the strip. For a time a 300-foot piece of it could still be seen in a grassy field just northeast of Smithfield and Bursey Roads, but housing surrounds the site now and a new development has wiped out that last remnant.

The first race date is unknown, but it was surely before July 10, 1960, when the Arlington Daily News reported twenty trophies and $200 in cash prizes handed out. That story called it one of the most modern drag strips in America. The track was affiliated with AHRA from the start and raced every Sunday. It drew strong racers early, including Jimmy Nix and Kent Chatagnier, who had run a world record 197.36 MPH. On July 3, 1960, Bobby Langley took top speed at 174 MPH in his “Scorpion III” A/FD. Veteran Jim Davis was badly hurt when his dragster crashed there on November 27, 1960.

In 1961, while NHRA held its first national championships at Indianapolis Raceway Park, AHRA ran a five-day national championships at Green Valley from August 31 to September 4. NHRA held its field to 500 cars, and AHRA drew 574 entries. Ed Garlits won top gas eliminator with an AHRA record of 8.82 seconds. Don Garlits was angry when the finish line spotters, who had no electronic equipment, gave Bobby Sullivan their qualifying race. Zane Shubert won top eliminator in the twin-engine Herbert Cam Chevy dragster, and Sullivan set an AHRA world record of 8.21 seconds. The AHRA nationals came back in 1962, when J. L. Payne, driving for Vance Hunt, beat Don Prudhomme in the A fuel final after Prudhomme had run a record low ET of 8.09 seconds at 189.96 MPH. At the 1963 AHRA nationals, Ted Arnold, 29, was killed when the chute failed on Vance Hunt’s A/FD and he ran off the end of the track at 180 MPH into a pole. Three drivers went over 200 MPH at that meet: Jeep Hampshire, fastest at 208.32 MPH, Connie Swingle and Bob Sullivan. The AHRA World Championships ran August 26-27, 1967, and the July 1970 issue of Hot Rod listed Green Valley as an NHRA-sanctioned track.