Spruce Creek Airport (Samsula)

NASCAR sponsored a week of night drag races at this airport on February 15-21, 1959, and more races ran there on other dates that year, including July 12. The field, now a private airport in Port Orange, is seven miles south of downtown Daytona Beach.

Don Garlits remembered Spruce Creek as the site of the first Winternationals, a NASCAR and NHRA joint event held February 7-13, 1960. Half a year after his bad crash, he set up his fuel car to run on gas and earned enough points over the week to win Top Gas eliminator. A detailed online account disputes his memory and puts that first Winternationals at Flagler-Bunnell Airport, north of Daytona Beach. The question hasn’t been settled.

Races ran on Mother’s Day and about monthly in 1960. The Daytona Beach Custom and Timing Association raced on the second and fourth Sundays in 1961, and in 1963 races were on the first and third Sundays. Some sources called it the Spruce Creek Drag Strip. A week-long Winter Nationals ran nightly during Speed Week in 1963, 1964 and 1965, without NASCAR sanction, and the NATAC Winter Nationals came back on February 24-26, 1966. The Swedish magazine Start & Strip listed it among 325 U.S. drag strips in 1968. NHRA sanctioned it for the first time that year, and it ran only a couple of races before closing for good at that site.