Pittsburgh International Dragway (Cuddy)

In 1962 Ed Witzberger floated the idea of a drag strip on a 3,300-foot runway of the old Campbell Airport. He said the success of the drag races at Heidelberg Raceway the summer before had prompted the plan, but the strip took two more years to build. Chuck Campbell started the track after the airport moved to a new site at the top of the hill to the southwest, and he was the promoter when it opened. Track photographer Bill Truby told Jerry Gross that the airport became a drag strip because wind currents there played havoc with the planes, sometimes flipping them over.

According to Gross, the track opened May 10, 1964, got NHRA sanction on June 28 that year and closed in May 1976. He said it started as an NHRA track, moved to NASCAR when Ed and Wally Parks couldn’t agree, and returned to NHRA later in the ’70s. NASCAR sanctioned it in 1965. Many top Sportsman drivers got their start there, among them Jim Boburka, Harry Luzader, Tom Myl and Mike Kosky. The strip cost about $150,000, and its last 1,200 feet sloped upward at 17 degrees, one of the features that allowed high speeds. Bill Palmer of Belle Vernon was the 1964 points leader and won the season finale on November 8 with 9.48 seconds at 149.75 MPH. Connie Kalitta set a strip record of 7.90 seconds at 200.88 MPH on May 22, 1966, and Al Kunkle set a record of 8.94 at 172.08 MPH in his twin-engine gas dragster. Gross said the basic track is still there, overgrown, and every building has fallen down. A group holds well-attended reunions each year and collects memorabilia from the raceway.