Magnolia Dragway/Deep South Dragway/Gulfport Dragway

History

Fred Cospelich built and managed this strip about a mile west of the Gulfport airport, north of town and east of Canal Road. It opened with grudge races on Sunday, June 25, 1972 and was NHRA-sanctioned from the start. On July 1, 1973, Leroy Goldstein in the Candies & Hughes AA/FD beat Clayton Harris in a best-of-three match race before 3,000 people, though Harris set a track and Mississippi record of 6.30 in the loss. The strip became Deep South Dragway in 1974, still under NHRA, and hosted the first NHRA Rebel National Open on June 22-23, which included the new Pro Comp class.

In 1977 it was renamed Gulfport International Dragway, and that February it hosted the IHRA Sportsman’s Nationals, where a Don Garlits-Shirley Muldowney match race drew a crowd. Cospelich sold the track in 1979. The Mississippi State Championship ran August 24-26, 1979 with a $30,000 purse, and the IDBA Nationals for drag bikes came in 1980. Since 1982 the Asgard Motorcycle Club has sponsored the All-Harley Memorial Day Blowout there, which had a reputation early on for public drunkenness and nudity that has since calmed down some. A three-day NHRA Firecracker Nationals ran in 1986. The track still runs under IHRA sanction.