I-25 North (Las Cruces)
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Racers raced on unfinished interstate and fled north on the gravel roadbed when the State Police came
- Raced
- ca. 1963-65
- State
- New Mexico
- What's left
- A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
- On the site today
- Interstate 25; a rest area sits near the old shutdown area
- Raced on
- A public road
- Surface
- Asphalt highway
- Location
- North end of the paved section of I-25, about 12 miles north of Las Cruces
No one has pinned down where this strip was yet.
In the early 1960s Interstate 25 was paved for only about 12 miles north of Las Cruces. After other efforts to get a drag strip failed, locals and people from around the region started meeting at the north end of the pavement for Sunday drag races. The shutdown area was roughly where today’s rest area is, though it wasn’t there then. The pavement ended south of where the Border Patrol station is now. If you didn’t mind gravel roadbed, you could escape the State Police by heading north. Andrew “JR” Gomolak has written down his memories of the races on that stretch of interstate.
