Keesler Air Force Base
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Raced
- 1956-57, 1959
- State
- Mississippi
- What's left
- A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
- Raced on
- A military airfield
- First race
- December 29-30, 1956
- Surface
- Runway
- Location
- Keesler Air Force Base runways
- People
- Ground Safety Section, sponsor (1956)
- Elevation
- 19 ft (6 m)
- Coordinates
- 30.40950, -88.92530
The base Ground Safety Section sponsored a two-day drag race on the main runway on December 29-30, 1956. It went well enough that the base commander approved a second race on February 23, 1957, on the northeast-southwest runway, with spectator stands planned in front of the Naval Reserve Park.
Background
Keesler has been an Air Force training base in Biloxi since 1941, named for 2d Lt Samuel Reeves Keesler, an aviator from Mississippi killed in France in World War I. It's still active and houses Second Air Force headquarters and the 81st Training Wing.
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