Ontario County Fairgrounds/Speedland (Canandaigua)

Central New York Speedway ran eighth-mile drag races at the Canandaigua fairgrounds under NASCAR supervision. The first race, on August 26, 1958, was on an all-dirt track, and Ron Smith of Phelps took top eliminator at 9.14 and 66 MPH in his 1957 Corvette. The second Tuesday night meet was September 2, but cold weather moved racing to Sundays after that. By the second race there was an asphalt starting area. Jack Morley managed the strip. As of mid-1961 the track record of 78.44 MPH belonged to Rosemarie Genusso, a 19-year-old from Rochester driving her father’s 1960 Corvette. A record 368 entries raced before 1,800 spectators on July 4, 1962, and Cliff Crandall set a track mark of 91.68 MPH in his B roadster that year. Rising speeds worried people because the shutdown was short with a turn near the end, and a Canandaigua Daily Messenger story asked, “Where will it all end?” The first regional eighth-mile championships, on the night of August 15, 1962, drew 400 cars and 1,800 spectators, and Erwin Hipp of Rochester won top eliminator at 80.89 MPH in his C/G Ford coupe.

In 1963 the starting pad was resurfaced and lengthened by 40 feet. From 1963 to 1966 the track was called Speedland, with Stu Hayes as general manager, who made a point of grading out the kinks. The Timing Association of North America (TANA) governed Speedland and several other New York strips. Race days in 1967 often drew more than 300 entries, and the strip appeared on a 1968 list of 325 U.S. drag strips in the Swedish magazine Start & Strip. It was sometimes called Big C Speedway. Promoter Les Harrison didn’t renew the drag racing lease after 1970, making that the last season.