Newport Drag Strip
ActiveActive Still racing today.
Also known as Speedy's Newport Dragstrip
Newport Raceway is an airport-area drag-racing venue at Comet Street in Newport.
- Pee Wee Wallace's "Virginia Twister" raced there in the late 1960s
- Raced
- ca. 1964-2019, 2021-present
- State
- Arkansas
- Raced on
- An airport runway
- First race
- 1964
- Track
- 1/8 mile
- Surface
- Taxiway
- Address
- 3740 Comet Street
Newport, AR 72112 - People
- Charles Doyle, track manager (1967)
- Sanction
- IHRA
- Elevation
- 236 ft (72 m)
- Coordinates
- 35.64597, -91.18935
- Contact
- (870) 217-2561 [email protected]
Big races
Street Outlaws no-prep event
A 2018 event drew JJ Da Boss and the Memphis Street Outlaws cast and was filmed for television, when the track was Speedy's Newport Drag Strip.
History
This NHRA-sanctioned strip opened in 1964, racing on the first and third Sundays, and switched to the second and fourth Sundays in 1967, when Charles Doyle managed it. It has always used an old taxiway on the north side of Newport Airport, northeast of town. Ross Gould watched races there in the late 1960s. At 12 to 14 he picked up trash, mowed grass and rode the water truck that wet down the dirt road into the track, all so he could get in free that night. He remembered seeing Pee Wee Wallace’s “Virginia Twister” and the “Chevy A-Go-Go.” The eighth-mile track has lately been called Speedy’s Newport Dragstrip.
Video
More in Arkansas
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Blytheville Air Force Base 1984
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Carlisle Drag Strip 1958-77
- Active Still racing today. Centerville Dragway 1977-present
- Nothing left No longer racing, and nothing of the track remains. Excell-a-Rating Drag Strip/Little Rock Drag Strip/I-30 Raceway 1959-ca. 1977
- Active Still racing today. George Ray's Dragstrip (Paragould) 1961-present
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Hope Drag Strip 1965-68
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Prescott Dragway 1973-77
- Active Still racing today. Prescott Raceway Park 1977-present
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Razorback Dragway (Fort Smith) 1963-ca. 1975
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot (Camden) 1962
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. State Fairgrounds Dragway (Little Rock) 2002-ca. 2004
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Stuttgart Dragway 1964-72