South Glens Falls Dragway (Moreau)
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
Also known as C&S Drag Strip
- Closed by the government over PCB-tainted GE waste oil spread for dust control
- Art Arfons made three runs over 190 MPH in the "Green Monster" jet in 1963
- Guardrails were railroad ties strung with wire cable
- Raced
- 1962-78
- State
- New York
- What's left
- You can still spot it in aerial photos, or broken pieces of the track surface remain.
- On the site today
- Public park; GE agreed in 1990 to pay for PCB cleanup
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- First race
- 1962 or earlier
- Track
- 1/8 mile
- Location
- Moreau, near South Glens Falls
- People
- Joseph Secora, landowner (1977)
- Fred Bulmer, leaseholder and operator (1977)
- John W. Crosse Sr., would-be operator (1979)
- Sanction
- NASCAR
- Elevation
- 349 ft (106 m)
- Coordinates
- 43.25372, -73.67736
This eighth-mile track was open by 1962 under NASCAR sanction, which it reportedly lost because promised improvements never happened. It had divided lanes, a short shutdown and guardrails made of railroad ties strung with wire cable. The pits were mostly dirt, with a little grass near the concessions. At one 1963 meet Art Arfons made three runs over 190 MPH in his “Green Monster” jet dragster. The 2nd annual Fall Championship NASCAR Drag Races, the last race of 1963, ran Sunday, October 6, and Bud Francis won top eliminator in the Bowen-Francis dragster at 9.90 and 123.28 MPH. Dave Strickler match raced the Yankee Peddler, both factory experimental cars, on May 16, 1965. On June 8, 1969, 25-year-old George Brimmer of Cambridge was killed in time trials when he couldn’t stop his Chevy II and it rolled several times.
In 1975 the strip asked the town of Moreau to move its weeknight racing from Wednesday to Friday. The answer must have been no, because Wednesday was still its only weeknight in 1978, along with Sundays. Around then, residents of homes built close by began complaining about noise. In 1977 landowner Joseph Secora was leasing the property to Fred Bulmer for racing. Snowmobile drag races were held on the strip in 1978. In April 1979 John W. Crosse Sr. asked to run races at the strip, renamed C&S Drag Strip, but officials required repairs to the announcing platform, bleachers and fences before they would issue a permit.
The government shut the strip down, saying PCB-contaminated waste oil from the nearby General Electric plant had been spread on the dirt return lane and surrounding ground between 1961 and 1964 to keep the dust down. Many old-timers believe the closing was more about politics than the environment, since every town and highway department in the area used the free GE oil and none of them had to clean up. Recent visitors say the oil-soaked ground is still visible. A few years after it closed, the site became a public park, and in 1990 GE agreed to pay to clean up the 40 acres.
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