International Raceway Park (Ona)

One researcher reported a drag strip next to a stock car oval here that supposedly opened in the mid-1960s, closed in the early 1970s and appeared in the 1970 NHRA track guide. Newspapers in 1969, though, describe the strip only as planned. That year TV personality Dick Clark became co-owner of the oval and the 300-acre property with Gary and Phillip Lashinsky and Rick Bowen. At a press conference the new leaseholders said a drag strip 60 feet wide and 4,000 feet long would be built in the middle of the complex next to the old West Virginia International Speedway, an oval that opened in 1963, folded in 1965 and sat idle until they leased it. NHRA division director Darwin Doll attended and raised the prospect of a fifth national drag meet at IRP in 1970. Racing on the big 7/16-mile oval began in early May, but work on the strip waited on NHRA approval of the details, and no report of it being built has been found.

Ona Airpark, next to the oval, opened as a public airport in late 1987 and still operates, with a 3,100-foot runway. One online source guessed a quarter-mile strip ran on it in 1969-70, but that doesn’t fit the other records. Survey images from 1967, 1976 and 1984 show no strip of any kind, and the airstrip first appears in 1988 images. Despite the 1970 NHRA guide listing, the drag strip at Ona was never built.