Okaloosa Drag Strip (Baker)

Wayne Reeves of Baker had long wanted to build a drag strip in Okaloosa County, but couldn’t afford the land on his own, so he asked his father and brother for help. In early 1966 his brother Johnny Reeves started talking to businessmen around the county, and twenty investors pooled their money to buy an 80-acre field between Baker and Galliver for a half-mile asphalt strip. It was on Galliver Cutoff southwest of Baker, ten miles west of Crestview. Wayne filed incorporation papers for Okaloosa Drag Strip Inc. on August 18, 1966, and construction began in October. He expected it to be ready by January 1, 1967 and planned to get NHRA sanction. They bought up-to-date timing equipment, lights for night racing and seating for 1,000. Four shakedown races came before the grand opening on April 9, 1967. On June 24, 1967, the track ran what it billed as the South’s first wheelie match race, Joe Vanni’s Bardahl Bug against J. C. Sizemore’s Baby Golden Rod wheelstander. Fred Sibley made exhibition runs in his jet dragster in 1971, 1972 and 1975, and the track had IHRA sanction in 1972. Newspapers in 1975-77 called it Baker Drag Strip, which may or may not mean a name change. When it closed isn’t known. The old strip is now Piper Lane.