Phoenix International Raceway

Construction began in September 1963 on a racing complex on the outskirts of what is now Avondale. Phoenix developer and businessman Richard P. “Dick” Hogue built and owned the $750,000 facility, which had a road course, a paved oval and a 3,000-foot drag strip. The strip was seventy feet wide with paved fire-up and return lanes, and its shutdown was effectively endless since it ran into the closed one-mile oval. Full strip lighting was planned but wasn’t bought or installed until May 1965. Bill Costianes was named drag racing director. The first formal race at the complex was a drag race on Sunday, January 12, 1964, but the strip’s grand opening was a two-day event on February 29 and March 1, 1964. Its $7,500 purse drew a strong field including Jimmy Nix and Chris Karamesines, and Connie Kalitta had the fastest run on opening day, 8.12 at 187 mph. Sunday night drag racing began on July 11, 1965, when the Steinegger-Eshenbaugh A/FD set a track speed record of 194.80 mph and the Speed Sport fueler set the ET record at 7.65. About 150 cars came each week. On August 22, 1965, Phil Miner, a 17-year-old high school racer, was killed when his dragster cartwheeled off the track at 160 mph. The drag racing program seems to have lasted only two years, though the Swedish magazine Start & Strip still included the strip in a 1968 list of 325 U.S. drag strips.