Mineral County Airport/Superior Drag Strip

County officials approved the Missoula Timing Association’s request to hold its first drag race at the airport on April 25, 1965. Missoula merchants donated generously toward trophies, and a new public address system went in for the May 9 race. Before long people were calling it the Superior Drag Strip. At the June 13, 1965 race, Dave Wren won top eliminator in his B/MP car with a 12.96 ET at 110.70 MPH, and Gary Steinert had top speed at 111.26 MPH in his A/G Dodge.

In August 1965 the Montana Aeronautics Commission was looking at banning drag racing at the state’s airports. One reason was an incident here during a race, when a plane trying to land had to pull up and go around because dragsters were on the runway. That was smoothed over, and racing went on through 1965 and 1966. After the 1966 season, though, the commission adopted a rule banning drag racing on the runways and taxiways of every public airport in Montana. That was a big setback, and the timing association met early in 1967 to talk about finding another place to race. No newspaper record of races after 1966 has turned up, but the strip was on a list of 325 U.S. drag strips published in 1968 by the Swedish magazine Start & Strip. Robert Graham, who went to races here in its first two summers, wrote down his memories of them.