Riverside Raceway (Nashville)

Closed

Celebrated its 20th anniversary on June 30, 1984

Raced: 1964-86
State: Tennessee
What's left: You can still spot it in aerial photos, or broken pieces of the track surface remain.
On the site today: Overgrown asphalt strip with the timing tower and signs still standing
Raced on: Built as a drag strip
First race: June 14, 1964
Surface: Asphalt
Location: North side of Interstate 40, about one mile east of the McCrory Lane exit 192, on a bend of the Harpeth River
People: Curtis Goodwin Jr., builder and operator (1964-)
Sanction: IHRA, NHRA
Elevation: 561 ft (171 m)
Coordinates: 36.07804, -86.98828

Curtis Goodwin Jr. built and ran this strip fifteen miles west of downtown Nashville. It opened on Sunday, June 14, 1964, and held its first night race on June 27. It sits on a bend of the Harpeth River on the north side of Interstate 40, about a mile east of the McCrory Lane exit 192, and the timing tower, signs and the weedy asphalt strip are still there. NHRA sanctioned it by at least July 1967, when it raced every Saturday night. On October 5, 1975, Chuck Turner, 34, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, was killed racing his top fuel dragster. In 1981 Goodwin moved race day from Sunday to Saturday to try to boost attendance and switched to IHRA, running under that sanction through 1984. The track marked its 20th anniversary with a race on Saturday night, June 30, 1984.

Listing in National Dragster, Dec. 23, 1977. Courtesy of Mel Bashore

1997 aerial view of Riverside Drag Strip

Starter Bill Omohundro sets off two cars at Riverside Raceway. Photo published in Nashville Tenessean, June 14, 1970

Curtis Goodwin, Riverside Raceway owner, experienced three straight rainouts at the opening of the 1979 season, the sixteenth season of the track's operation. Photo published in Nashville Tenessean, April 21, 1979

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