Island Dragway (Great Meadows)
ActiveActive Still racing today.
Also known as County Park Raceway
New Jersey's last remaining drag strip, opened in 1960 by Edward and Catherine Kowalick on their farm in Great Meadows and now run by their granddaughter Melissa Milano and her husband Carl. It hosts Summit ET bracket racing, nostalgia drags, diesel drags and swap meets.
- Don Garlits set an NHRA AA/FD record of 7.78 at 201.34 MPH on August 1, 1964
- Arnie Swensen of Swensen & Lani was an opening-day class winner
- Raced
- 1960-present
- State
- New Jersey
- First race
- mid-July 1960 (listed for June 26, 1960; possibly as early as 1959)
- Sanction
- NHRA Division 1
- Track
- 1/8 mile and 1/4 mile
- Address
- 20 Island Dragway Road
Great Meadows, NJ 07838 - People
- Great Meadows Timing Association, race operator
- Elevation
- 513 ft (156 m)
- Coordinates
- 40.87769, -74.91333
Big races
Summit ET bracket racing
NHRA Summit ET points racing on eighth-mile and quarter-mile formats, plus spring and fall swap meets.
Down And Dirty
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
History
Records are thin, but there’s some reason to think Island Dragway was racing as early as 1959. Hot Rod’s monthly strip listings give an opening date of June 26, 1960, though rain that day pushed the opening to mid-July. Ed Beers wrote that Arnie Swensen, of Swensen & Lani, was a class winner on opening day. Hot Rod’s August 1960 issue listed it as an NHRA track running every Sunday. Matt Herbert won top eliminator at 129.13 MPH in his Chrysler-powered dragster at one of the first races. The Great Meadows Timing Association ran the races. On August 1, 1964, Don Garlits set an NHRA AA/FD record here at 7.78 and 201.34 MPH, two weeks after his 200.44 at Detroit Dragway briefly stood as a Drag News 1320 record. The track was called County Park Raceway in 1976 and went back to Island Dragway in 1977. It still runs under NHRA sanction.
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