Kinston Drag Strip
ActiveActive Still racing today.
Also known as Jackson Field
A quarter-mile IHRA strip built in 1960 and owned by Bobby Smith since 1977. It is known for bracket racing and, for decades, the Winterfest New Year race.
- Don Nicholson ran 11.36 in a fiberglass Comet station wagon in 1964
- Larry Reyes raised the track speed record to 183.78 MPH in 1967
- Rex Whitehurst jumped a motorcycle 137 feet over 23 cars in 1977
- Raced
- 1960-present
- State
- North Carolina
- Raced on
- An airport runway
- First race
- 1960 or 1961 (first documented March 31, 1963)
- Track
- 1/4 mile and 1/8 mile
- Address
- 2869 Hull Road
Kinston, NC 28501 - People
- Shade Aldridge, builder (1960)
- John White, builder (1960)
- Paul Nobles, builder (1960)
- Pos Jarman, builder (1960)
- Bobby Smith, owner (1977-)
- Sanction
- IHRA
- Elevation
- 43 ft (13 m)
- Coordinates
- 35.23289, -77.63451
Big races
Winter Ice Breaker
A new winter race added in 2026 to replace the long-running Winterfest; its first date was postponed by snow.
Winterfest (discontinued)
A New Year's bracket race that once filled the pits with 400-plus cars; dropped from the 2026 schedule because of winter weather.
252 List racing
Thursday night heads-up racing for local street cars (reported in 2021; check current format).
History
The track’s website says Shade Aldridge, John White, Paul Nobles and Pos Jarman built it as a quarter-mile strip in 1960 on the old Jackson Field airstrip. The earliest newspaper record found is a race on March 31, 1963, offering $2,000 in prizes and expected to draw more than 200 entries from twelve states and 4,000 fans, with Super Stock racers Don Nicholson, Dick Brannon, Gene Hinston and Harold Denton expected. Newspapers say little about the strip until the mid-1960s, by which time it was well established with regular big-name shows. On March 22, 1964, Nicholson ran 11.36 in his fiberglass 1964 Mercury Comet Marauder station wagon, and he match raced Ronnie Sox on May 2, 1965. In a match race on July 23, 1967, Ed Schartman’s ‘67 Comet set a track ET record of 8.21 and Larry Reyes’ Kingfish Cuda set the speed record at 180.00 MPH. Reyes came back on November 12 in his ‘68 Barracuda funny car and raised it to 183.78.
The strip was leveled and resurfaced for 1969, and at the March 30 opener Terry Hedrick beat Reyes two of three in a Chevy vs. Ford funny car match, with a best of 7.88 at 176.47 MPH. On October 21, 1973, Adrian Fountain won his race, lost control and hit Frank Rivenbark’s car in the other lane, a fatal crash. Current owner Bobby Smith bought the track in 1977. On August 7, 1977, “Wreckless” Rex Whitehurst set a world record by jumping a motorcycle 137 feet over 23 cars. The track took IHRA sanction in the mid-1980s, and the very first IHRA divisional points meet was held in 1991. Sometime before 1992 it switched from the quarter to the eighth mile. A guardrail went in in 1992, which news reports called the first in the track’s 31-year history, suggesting it may have opened in 1961. The track also hosts rock concerts and other events, including a “booty shake off.”
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