Kettlersville Drag Strip

Noel Leighton and his partner Earl Gunnell built this strip on Leighton’s land southwest of Kettlersville in 1959, with Gunnell’s son David as flagman. It was short and rough. David Gunnell remembered very little stopping room at the end, a local racer recalled lots of dips, and another said it was timed for a fifth-mile. It was paved to a quarter-mile in 1959 but apparently raced at a fifth-mile, leaving a very short paved shutdown.

By 1961 it raced every Sunday under new management, added Thursday night racing on June 22, and in mid-July dropped Sundays for Thursday through Saturday nights. New owners in 1962, D. L. Burch, Fred Calim, Dick Burch and Ken Ruark, switched to Thursday and Saturday nights with trophies and cash prizes. Ownership kept changing. William and Devoe Meade had it before selling in March 1967 to William and Linda Jones, Raymond Waldron, Carl Girod and Bruce Simmons, who also owned Van Wert Dragway and kept night racing Thursday through Saturday. At some point International Drag Racing Hall of Fame member Ted Jones owned the track. No news of it running after 1971 has turned up.