Pride of the Pacific Drag Strip (San Luis Obispo)
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Raced
- 1957-63
- State
- California
- What's left
- A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
- Raced on
- An airport runway
- First race
- May 19, 1957
- Surface
- Asphalt (new in 1961)
- Location
- San Luis Obispo Airport (county-owned)
- People
- San Luis Obispo County Timing Association, operator (1957-60)
- Cal Poly Roadster Club Turtles, operator (1961)
- Sanction
- NHRA
- Elevation
- 178 ft (54 m)
- Coordinates
- 35.23812, -120.64484
The San Luis Obispo County Timing Association held its first drag race at the county-owned San Luis Obispo airport on May 19, 1957. Racers paid $1 and spectators 75 cents. Gary Boerman of Cal Poly won top eliminator and Hut Watkins had the top time at 116.88 mph. NHRA-sanctioned races ran on the third Sunday of every month in 1959 and 1960. Racing seems to have stopped from about February 1960 until February 1961, when it came back with new asphalt, a new manager and a new name, Pride of the Pacific Drag Strip. The Cal Poly Roadster Club Turtles ran the races, held on the fourth Sunday in 1961.
Background
The airport is McChesney Field, now San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. It opened in 1939, the military used it through 1945, and five passenger airlines fly from it today.
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