Princeton Dragway
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Opening Memorial Day weekend drew almost 6,000 spectators
- Hosted the Southern Bracket Racing Association finals in October 1995
- Raced
- 1987-99
- State
- West Virginia
- What's left
- The site was redeveloped, but the strip or its layout lives on in whatever replaced it.
- On the site today
- Ginger Lane in a mobile home park, beside Princeton Dragway Road
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- May 23, 1987
- Track
- 1/8 mile
- Location
- North of Princeton, west of I-77, just south of Princeton Speedway
- People
- Melvin Bishop, co-owner and builder (1986-)
- James Bishop, co-owner and builder (1986-)
- Sanction
- IHRA
- Elevation
- 2,394 ft (730 m)
- Coordinates
- 37.43612, -81.06887
Brothers Melvin and James Bishop bought the Bolton farm in December 1986 to build an eighth-mile strip north of Princeton, west of I-77, just south of the Princeton Speedway clay oval. The 40-foot-wide strip had lights for night racing and 1,200 feet of shutdown. The first race, on May 23, 1987, offered a purse of almost $2,000, and the two-day Memorial Day weekend event drew almost 6,000 spectators despite bad weather. The track was IHRA sanctioned. Vandalism and theft were a constant problem in the 1990s. In 1994 it joined seven other East Coast strips under the Southern Bracket Racing Association, insured by KK Racing Insurance, and it hosted the association’s finals in October 1995. The old strip is now Ginger Lane in a mobile home park, where one of the loop roads is named Princeton Dragway Road.
