Midway Drag Strip/Western Colorado Dragway (Grand Junction)

History

Grand Junction’s first drag races were on a graded dirt strip near the old Grand Speedway at the northeast corner of East Grand Avenue and North 28th Street, graded by the Saints Hot Rod Club and the Firebugs and running by 1955. In the late 1950s racing moved to Walker Field, the city airport, on a paved southwest-northeast taxiway southwest of the main runway. That taxiway was later improved into a working runway, today’s Runway 4/22. It opened for racing in June 1959 as part of the Friendship Festival and was first called the Grand Junction City-County Drag Strip. A benefit race in late November 1959 raised money for the St. Mary’s Hospital Fund. In 1960 and early 1961 the Grand Junction Hot Rod Council, made up of the Dragins and Runabouts car clubs, ran NHRA-sanctioned races every other Sunday. By 1961 it was called Midway Drag Strip. In 1963 races ran monthly, on April 14, May 12, June 2, June 30, July 28, August 11, September 8 and October 6. In 1964 racing moved from the airport to its current home, a bare tract in the Whitewater area about seven miles south of Grand Junction, east of Highway 50. As of 2016 it was still running under NHRA sanction, mostly bracket racing.