Mid-Carolina Drag Strip (Batesburg)
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Cecil Darnell's Red Demon jet dragster ran exhibitions despite a 1,400-foot shutdown area
- E. J. Parachute Potter, Howard Neal and Don Nicholson raced there
- Raced
- early 1960s-1974
- State
- South Carolina
- What's left
- You can still spot it in aerial photos, or broken pieces of the track surface remain.
- Surface
- Dirt, then asphalt
- Location
- Four miles south of Batesburg on Highway 391
- Elevation
- 492 ft (150 m)
- Coordinates
- 33.84378, -81.52806
This track, four miles south of Batesburg on Highway 391, began as a dirt strip in the early 1960s and was paved with asphalt after a year. An early news story said Jack McClure would make exhibition runs in his turbine-powered go-kart on Saturday night, May 23, 1964. On June 19, 1965, Huston Platt beat Carson Hyman in a best three-out-of-five match race in his ‘55 T-Bird. Other big names who raced there included E. J. “Parachute” Potter, Howard Neal and Don Nicholson. On August 21, 1965, Bert Wilkerson made exhibition passes in Cecil Darnell’s “Red Demon” jet dragster, amid serious worry about whether he could stop it in the 1,400-foot shutdown area. Super stock racing was very popular there in the late 1960s.
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