Six Flags Dragway (Victoria)

In 1962 A. B. Alkek leased a concrete runway at his airport, Aloe Field, to a group of stockholders for drag racing. Aloe Field was five miles southwest of Victoria on Highway 89. It had been built as Aloe Army Air Field in 1943 and turned over to civilian use after the war. The races were NHRA sanctioned from the start, sponsored by the Rod Benders car club, and ran on the first and third Sundays in 1962 and the third Sunday in 1963. The first race may have been July 15, 1962. The next Sunday Bobby Langley ran a match race against the Nix Brothers & Bale fuel dragster from Dallas. Eddie Hill and a young Don Gay also raced there in the early years, and Vance Hunt held the track record at 204 MPH in 1963.

Gilbert Kupfernagel bought out the other shareholders in 1965 and became manager, with races once a month from April through November. In 1966 eight races drew 780 cars and 10,454 spectators, with Billy Plemons as starter and Godfred Berger as announcer. In 1968 G. A. Kupfernagel bought the property and named it Six Flags Raceway Park. By 1971 it was Victoria Drag Raceway, and it hosted the AHRA Southern Regional Drag Races on May 13-14, 1972. Kupfernagel sold the land and equipment to John Clegg in 1973. The name became Golden Crescent Raceway Park in 1974, and in 1975 went back to Six Flags Dragway under Ronnie Benes and John Clegg. That appears to have been its last year, and the land was sold for industrial development.