McCracken County Drag Strip/Beacon Dragway (Paducah)

History

Merle S. Shemwell filed incorporation papers for McCracken County Drag-Strip on July 15, 1968, and shares of stock were sold to help pay for construction. An informal grudge race on August 10, 1959 opened the track to racing. It ran as McCracken County Drag Strip from 1969 to 1972. A management group called C-H-K Racing took over in 1970, and early that year Armco, which had sold the track its guardrails, sued for nonpayment.

From 1973 to 1976 it was Western Kentucky Dragway, sanctioned by NHRA and owned by Burnett S. Simons. In the mid-1970s it started going by Paducah International Dragway. A banked oval, Paducah International Raceway, had gone up next to the strip in 1972. Don Farrington and John Potter later bought the property and turned it into a small private airport, Grow Airpark. A race or two ran there in 2008, once again as Western Kentucky Dragway. Keith Murt and Dr. Blaine Grow, a co-owner of Grow Airpark, then built the eighth-mile, NHRA-sanctioned Beacon Dragway on the old Farrington Airpark and part of Grow Airpark. It opened on May 18, 2013, seven miles southeast of Paducah.