Person County Drag Strip/Roxboro Dragway
ActiveActive Still racing today.
Also known as Person County Dragstrip; Roxboro Motorsports Park
A locally owned, women-operated eighth-mile track in Timberlake that has run since 1959. It holds IHRA bracket points, small-tire Friday nights, big-money 10K bracket weekends, and a separate dirt drag program for ATVs and trucks.
- Ronnie Sox set a track record of 8.59 at 159.96 mph against Don Nicholson in 1975
- Reid Whisnant won the 1971 NAAR spring Pro Stock title in the Sox & Martin Duster
- Don Carlton set a Pro Stock track record in 1974
- Raced
- 1959-present
- State
- North Carolina
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- 1959
- Track
- 1/8 mile
- Surface
- Dirt, paved in 1961, resurfaced with concrete around 2006
- Address
- 1452 Thomas Store Rd
Timberlake, NC 27583 - People
- John Henry Garrett, founder and owner (1959-1981)
- Richard "Sonny" Shipmon, manager (1981)
- Henry and Jerry Martin, owners and operators (2003-)
- Danny Grizzard and Junior Ward, owners (2014)
- Sanction
- IHRA, SBRA
- Elevation
- 568 ft (173 m)
- Coordinates
- 36.35078, -78.81844
Big races
Freaky Friday
Heads-up night for Extreme Street, Gangsta True Street, small tire and shop car shootout classes.
Monthly bracket weekends
A monthly three-day block with a Friday gambler's bracket and 5.49 index, a Saturday IHRA points race, and Horsepower Sunday non-points brackets.
History
John Henry Garrett opened Person County Dragstrip in 1959 with help from his wife Ruby and sons Keith, Michael and Gary. It started on dirt. Garrett paved it in 1961, barely wide enough for two cars, filed incorporation papers on January 11, 1967, and widened it to its current width in 1970. It was a quarter-mile while the Garretts owned it. The name changed to Roxboro Dragway in 1976, though another account puts the change in the 1977 season.
Ronnie Sox raced at the 1st Annual Easter Bash in 1962. On May 23, 1971, Reid Whisnant drove the Sox & Martin Plymouth Duster to the Pro Stock title at the National Association of Auto Racing’s spring championship, with a top speed of 140.18 mph and a low ET of 9.94. On Easter Sunday, April 22, 1973, Sox beat Ken Dodero, driving Don Nicholson’s Pinto, three straight times, then came back Monday and beat Nicholson himself twice in match races, with a best of 9.12 at 148.50 mph. Don Carlton set a Pro Stock track record of 7.36 at 149.00 mph on July 28, 1974. That same day Herb McCandless drove his last race for Sonny Shipmon’s Burlington-based Brooklyn Heavy team, which folded for economic reasons. Sox set a track record of 8.59 at 159.96 mph in a match race with Nicholson on March 31, 1975.
Garrett owned and ran the dragway until 1981, when former racer Richard “Sonny” Shipmon took over management. Henry and Jerry Martin owned and ran it from 2003. In 2006 they enlarged the pit area and resurfaced the strip with concrete. As of 2014 the owners of what’s now Roxboro Motorsports Park were Danny Grizzard and Junior Ward. It runs as an eighth-mile track under IHRA sanction.
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