Southern Quarter Drag Strip/McKenzie Drag Strip/Rico Drag Strip (Clarkton)

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Also known as Farmers Union Community Speedway; The Cornfield

An unsanctioned, old-school eighth-mile strip in Clarkton in southeastern North Carolina, now operating as Rico Drag Strip under owner Lonzell McKenzie. It runs brackets, grudge and no-time racing and has been steadily upgraded.

Billed its June 9, 1963 race as the biggest of the summer, with a $650 purse

Raced: 1963-64, ?-present
State: North Carolina
First race: by 1963
Track: 1/8 mile
Address: Clarkton, NC
Elevation: 115 ft (35 m)
Coordinates: 34.40214, -78.61511

Big races

Bracket points series

one or two events per month · bracket points

Roughly eleven bracket races a year count toward a track points series.

Event page

Grudge and no-time racing

spring and fall · grudge / no-time

Outlaw-style grudge and no-time events, with Saturday test-and-tune in the hot summer months.

Event page

History

This strip, four miles north of Hallsboro on Elkton Road, was running by 1963. Ads and articles billed the June 9, 1963 race as the biggest of the summer, with a $650 total purse across four classes. Expected Super Stock entries included Gene Hinson of Dunn (Little Boy Blue), Julian Peele of Jacksonville (Strip Teaser) and Harold Benton of Goldsboro (Blue Safari). Nothing has turned up on the track outside 1963 and 1964. Probably sometime in the late 1960s it became McKenzie Drag Strip, and probably in the 1990s Rico Drag Strip. By 2005 at the latest it was called Farmers Union Community Speedway, and it’s also known as The Cornfield. It runs today without a sanction.

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