Port Orford Drag Strip/Western Oregon Dragway

Closed

Also known as Cape Blanco State Airport

Raced: 1961-69
State: Oregon
What's left: A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
On the site today: Cape Blanco State Airport
Raced on: An airport runway
First race: August 20, 1961 (one racer recalls 1956)
Surface: Airstrip
Location: Sixes airstrip, about eight miles north of Port Orford (now Cape Blanco State Airport)
People: Southern Oregon Timing Association, race organizer (1961)
Gear Lords car club, local organizer (1961)
South Western Oregon Timing Association, race organizer (1962)
Elevation: 208 ft (64 m)
Coordinates: 42.85841, -124.52418

One racer remembers racing here as early as 1956. But when the Southern Oregon Timing Association ran a 50-class race at Port Orford on August 20, 1961, helping the local Gear Lords car club learn how to stage future events, the Klamath Falls Herald & News called it the first drag race ever held on that part of the Oregon coast. In 1962 the South Western Oregon Timing Association raced every Sunday at the Sixes airstrip, built in 1943 about eight miles north of Port Orford and now Cape Blanco State Airport. Races in 1963 ran July 21, August 18 and September 29. The Swedish magazine Start & Strip listed it among 325 U.S. drag strips in 1968.

Two dragsters square off at Western Oregon Dragway. Photo published in Coos Bay World, June 13, 1969

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