Kanawha Valley Dragstrip (Winfield)
Status unknownStatus unknown Closed, but nobody has checked how much of the site survives, or the exact spot was never found.
Also known as Winfield Drag Strip; Route 17 Drag Strip
- Advertised as West Virginia's only drag strip in 1958
- Jim Hundley set a 141.06 MPH track record in 1963
- Raced
- 1958-76
- State
- West Virginia
- What's left
- How much of the site survives hasn't been checked yet.
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- May 30, 1958
- Track
- 1/2 mile strip, 1/5 mile timed
- Surface
- Asphalt
- Location
- Winfield Road (Route 17), a mile south of Winfield, ten miles below St. Albans
- People
- Southern West Virginia Timers' Association, race operator (1958)
- Elevation
- 583 ft (178 m)
- Coordinates
- 38.52131, -81.86101
The Southern West Virginia Timers’ Association started weekly Sunday races on May 30, 1958, when Merrill Casdorph took top eliminator at 89 MPH in his 1957 T-Bird. The new half-mile asphalt strip was on Winfield Road (Route 17), ten miles below St. Albans and a mile south of Winfield, between St. Albans and Point Pleasant. It also went by Winfield Drag Strip and Route 17 Drag Strip. The strip was so short overall that races were timed over a fifth of a mile. Fifteen classes ran that first year, and ads called it West Virginia’s only drag strip. Carl Hardin of South Webster, Ohio, set the track record of 106.60 MPH in his altered on August 17, 1958. On August 11, 1963, Jim Hundley of Charleston raised it to 141.06 MPH in 8.4 seconds. Ads in 1975 told drivers to take Route 35 to the Winfield exit and turn left.
