Owensboro Drag Strip

Hal Miller built this strip on Veach Road in Owensboro, and it opened in 1958. According to one history, a group of hot rodders asked Miller whether he had land for a drag strip. He did, so he built the track, the hot rodders ran the races, and Miller’s concession stand served as the lease payment. It started as a two-lane strip with a chip-and-seal surface and a dirt shutdown area. The first race on the newly paved track ran August 10, 1958, and Norman Hall took top eliminator and top time in his ‘57 Corvette with a 15.45.

An old-timer remembered it as a modest place just outside town, past the Owensboro Country Club. Races started with an old stoplight, and with no Christmas tree for handicap starts, cars were spotted by car lengths. An A/Stock 427 Ford against a V/Stock ‘52 Studebaker put the Studebaker almost halfway down the track. As Owensboro grew, city leaders pressured Miller about the strip. In 1970 he built a dirt oval at the Windy Hollow Fairgrounds and moved the drag strip next to it, where it took the Windy Hollow name.