Newport Drag Strip
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
Also known as Newport Drag Prix
- Ed McCulloch set a strip speed record of 207.89 mph in 1967
- Raced
- 1966-69
- State
- Oregon
- What's left
- A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
- On the site today
- Airport
- Raced on
- An airport runway
- First race
- summer 1966
- Last race
- 1969
- Location
- Newport Municipal Airport, a few miles south of Newport
- People
- Newport Kiwanis Club, sponsor (1966-67)
- Al Beachell, manager (1969)
- Sanction
- NHRA
- Elevation
- 92 ft (28 m)
- Coordinates
- 44.58056, -124.06139
This pin shares its exact coordinates with another strip in the source data, so it may be misplaced.
In 1966 the Newport Kiwanis Club got permission to sponsor summer drag races at Newport Municipal Airport, a few miles south of town. Its second annual Newport Drag Prix, on June 18, 1967, offered $2,000 in cash and trophies and a match race between Jerry Ruth of Washington and Ron Salisbury of Oregon. Salisbury set a strip ET record of 7.48, and Ed “The Ace” McCulloch, driving Ken Maki’s Scotty’s Drive-Inn AA/FD, set a speed record of 207.89 mph. The Swedish magazine Start & Strip listed it in 1968. Late that year the city council limited it to two races in 1969, when the May Hot Rod listed it as NHRA sanctioned and Al Beachell managed it. Racing then stopped because of ongoing trouble with FAA rules.
Background
Newport Municipal is a city-owned general aviation airport about three nautical miles south of downtown Newport. It once had commuter flights to Portland International, but SeaPort Airlines dropped the route in July 2011 and nothing scheduled has replaced it.
More in Oregon
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