Menaul Truck Cutoff Road/Eubank Boulevard (Albuquerque)

Drag racing moved around Albuquerque in the 1950s. In May 1952 the Albuquerque Competitive Motor Enthusiasts Club, or ACME Auto Club, got police permission to block off a stretch of Menaul Boulevard, also called San Jacinto Boulevard, a mile east of Hoffmantown. The first race, on May 18, 1952, drew 43 entries and 500 spectators. Cars with amateur radios sat at the start and finish of the quarter mile. A car crossing the finish broke a string, which signaled the man at the start to click his stopwatch. Cars were timed from both standing starts and flying starts with an eighth-mile run-up. ACME became the New Mexico Timing Association in July, and by August it was racing every other Sunday.

In 1952 the races were on the boulevard just east of Wyoming Boulevard, and in 1953 on Menaul just east of Eubank Boulevard, where the club built a timing stand and fenced the pits and spectator area. From 1954 the association raced on South Eubank Drive across from Speedway Park, a banked dirt oval. In 1957 it raced every other Sunday from May through October at Eubank and Central SE, with a track record of 105 MPH, and the association included nine Albuquerque car clubs. In 1958 it stopped racing on Eubank, which at thirty feet wide didn’t meet NHRA safety standards, partly to make the case for a real strip. When the city didn’t come through, racers went back to racing illegally. In late 1961 the Albuquerque Drag Association, headed by Dick Pool, blocked off Eubank and charged 50 cents a run, saving the money for a future strip. Dick Schafer has written about that 1961 racing.