Unnamed drag strip (St. George)

What may have been the first drag race at the old airport on the mesa west of St. George came in September 1955, a two-city meet between St. George racers and Cedar City’s “Knights of the Road” car club. The airport dated to the 1930s and by the 1950s had one paved 5,100-foot runway. The Knights ran another race on the runway on Sunday, February 12, 1956, charging 25 cents. A Labor Day race on September 2, 1963, gave trophies to every class winner and cash in two eliminator categories, and by 1969 there were Memorial Day races as well. In 1972 the Southern Utah Drag Race Association (SUDRA) took over, calling it West Central Drag Strip, and tried for AHRA sanction. On March 31, 1977, the St. George Drag Racing Association asked the city council for help improving the old airport, possibly with chain link fencing. Through the 1970s and 1980s racing went on under the names West Central Drag Strip, Dixie Raceway and High Country Raceway. In 2001 newspapers reported that illegal night racing on the runway had become a problem, and the High Country Race Club, which ran the approved races, worried it could lose the track. The airport closed when a new municipal airport opened in 2011. BlackRock Motorsports and the Lions Club brought back limited racing in 2013, until construction on the old runway forced the races to stop.