Old Gator Drag Strip/Stage Coach Road (Keithville)

Around the late 1950s or early 1960s, Duaine Bamburg, a California businessman, and R. I. Waldrip got permission to race on a public road just east of Mansfield Road near Keithville. The road was only safe for street-legal cars, and Bamburg was building a hot roadster, so the pair treated Stage Coach Road as a stopgap while they saved up for a real strip. Times were first taken with stopwatches and later with electronic timers. The Challengers car club helped run the races.

Announcer Dave McClelland called Stage Coach Road the original Old Gator. The street was blocked off and spectators lined the curbs to watch street cars run close to a quarter mile. The start was near Highway 171 (Mansfield Road), and the course ran toward the railroad tracks crossing the street. Drivers tried to slow enough to turn before the tracks, and since the crossing sat higher than the road, cresting it was a thrill. Nothing was built near the road then, in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Everyone soon agreed something better was needed, and the purpose-built second Old Gator came next so racers wouldn’t have to cross the tracks.