Paradise Mesa Drag Strip (San Diego)

San Diego’s first drag strip was at the Sweetwater Dam Naval Outlying Field, built in late 1944 for carrier landing practice. Its single east-west asphalt runway lay east of National City and south of Encanto. The Bean Bandits ran their cars on the old field even before regular races began. Racers were meeting there every week in late 1950 and January 1951 until police stopped it on February 1, 1951. Racing started again with the San Diego Sheriff’s Office’s approval on March 11, 1951. The early years had little supervision or safety, with as many as eight cars racing side by side. By 1953 at the latest the San Diego Timing Association was running the races under NHRA sanction. Quarter-mile races ran on the 3,000-foot runway. The field was an active airport until sometime in the mid to late 1950s but closed to planes on race weekends. Hot Rod Magazine covered it in April 1952 (pages 14-15), June 1952 (pages 54-55 and 59) and February 1953 (page 27).

Five track records fell at the season opener on April 11, 1954, when Holly Hedrick and Jim Shinahara had top speed at 125.23 mph, beating Emory Cook. Joaquin Arnett won the fastest eliminator trophy at 127.99 mph on June 27, 1954. The Second Annual Southwest Regional Championships ran over two days, July 24-25, 1954. Red Henslee held the track record through 1954 at 134.93 mph and raised it to 138.80 mph on July 10, 1955 in his Mercury-powered dragster. On June 10, 1956, a car broke an axle and swerved into the crowd near the starting line, injuring twelve people, none fatally. Track manager Don Menard said 4,000 people saw it. On January 20, 1957, the Bean Bandits’ Cook and Bedwell set a track record of 153.06 mph.

The strip closed in 1959 when the land was sold to developers for housing, with a final race scheduled for March 1, 1959. San Diego County racing then moved to Hour Glass Field near Miramar Naval Air Station. Houses covered the site in the late 1960s and 1970s, and nothing remains of the airfield.