Pungo Airfield (Virginia Beach)

Closed

Informal racing stopped by State Police in 1955

Raced: 1955
State: Virginia
What's left: A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
On the site today: Coast Guard radio transmission towers
Raced on: A military airfield
Track: 2,500-foot runways
Surface: Concrete
Location: Pungo, Virginia Beach
People: Tidewater Dragstrip Association, would-be buyer (1958)
Elevation: 14 ft (4 m)
Coordinates: 36.72811, -76.01274

Drag races were said to have been held on a runway at this old Navy airfield in Virginia Beach, possibly before 1955. There’s evidence of informal racing there in 1955 until the State Police put a stop to it. On November 19, 1958, the Tidewater Dragstrip Association met to discuss a chance to buy the old runway for racing, with one week to raise a $3,000 down payment. Nothing shows they went through with it, and the cost may have been too much. During the war the field, with three 2,500-foot concrete runways, was an auxiliary to Norfolk Naval Air Station. Afterward it was mostly abandoned among farmland, then turned over to the Coast Guard, which uses it for many of its radio towers today. Starting in 1962, drag races were held south of Pungo at Creed’s Field.

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