Mustang Drag Strip (Waco)

Mustang Drag Strip was on Wiggins Road, fourteen miles north of Waco and a mile west of the Waco-Dallas Highway. Roy Stone, a Mustang motorcycle dealer, owned and ran it, which is where the name came from. The first race of 1962 was June 24, with trophies for class winners, and ads promised no alcohol and plenty of shade. On July 29 racers protested Gary Wayne Miller, believing he had a locked differential. He said tearing down his rear end was too much trouble and went on to win stock eliminator in his H Stock ‘55 Chevy. Saturday night racing began August 25, and from Sunday, September 30, Sunday afternoon admission was free through the fall. The last newspaper mention found is for the race on Saturday, June 8, 1963. One old-timer remembered railroad ties at the end of the strip to keep cars out of a farmer’s field.

On July 17, 1971, a race car crashed into spectators near the end of the quarter mile and hurt four people. The same old-timer remembered a driver being killed at the strip, and that it closed soon after. A man who grew up in West went every weekend with his dad as a kid, sometimes riding as a passenger, and was there for the last night of racing in the early 1970s. He said the strip was still there, used as a driveway, and that there was quarter horse racing next to it in the early 1980s. John W. Williamson owned the strip then. In early 1981, when he asked the county for permission to improve the property, neighbors complained about noise and pollution, which suggests it may have still been running in the 1980s.