Unnamed drag strip (Nettleton)

Little was known about this strip until a 2019 Monroe Journal article reported that the old strip, just south of where Cowpenna Creek passes under Highway 6 southeast of Nettleton, was being restored as a crop duster runway. It opened as a dirt strip sometime after 1955 and before 1960, when it appears in an aerial photo, and was reportedly paved in 1962. By the time it closed in the late 1960s it had a timing tower, a concession stand and an outhouse, the only building left. Larry Lindsey remembered Friday night and Sunday races, cars coming from Arkansas and Tennessee on tow bars since few people had trailers, a light bulb on a cable over the strip for staging, and Sunday crowds who were supposed to be at church.

F. P. Lowery bought the property in 1968 and used it as a crop dusting strip, and it sat empty after he retired in 1991. His son Perry, who went to the races as a teenager and was restoring the runway, said only a cable separated fans from the track, traffic backed up on the highway on race days, and nobody could race that way now. The newspaper said two people died at the strip, and one has been confirmed. Jimmy Riley, 26, of Fulton was killed on Sunday, April 28, 1968 when he lost control and his car wedged between three trees. Racing deaths apparently closed the strip. One local remembers it being called Bud’s Racetrack.