Kaw Valley Dragway (Topeka)

This eighth-mile strip on Lower Silver Lake Road in North Topeka held some important short-distance events. The Kaw Valley Timing Association ran it, and there had been races before the Kansas 1/8th-mile drag championships on July 23, 1961, at the strip that was called Kaw Valley Dragway by 1962. A fueler had set the strip record of 145.76 mph in 1960. Freddy Inyard of Lawrence won top eliminator at the 1961 championships with a strip and AHRA national record of 122.40 mph in the Inyard-Baxter-Jones A gas dragster, one of fifteen AHRA class records broken that day. Inyard won again on May 24, 1962, and dominated top eliminator in 1963. A dike at the end of the strip gave racers good reason to stop before they ended up in the water. The return road was dirt, and cars weighed in at the grain elevators across the road. At the AHRA Midwestern 1/8th-mile Championships on August 11, 1963, Inyard took top eliminator with the best time and speed at 6.40 and 130.4 mph, though Bob Sullivan’s track record of 146.6 mph in his A/FD held. On May 23, 1965, Ted Flory of Lawrence ran 142.8 mph in 5.95 seconds in his D fuel dragster. When the strip closed isn’t known. The last record of it is from 1965, though the Swedish magazine Start & Strip listed it among 325 U.S. drag strips in 1968.