Stardust International Raceway (Las Vegas)

The Stardust Hotel and Casino built this track five miles west of the Las Vegas Strip, starting work on the drag strip section of a three-mile road course in March 1965. The course was bounded by Flamingo Road on the north, Tropicana Road on the south, Rainbow Boulevard on the east and Piedmont Boulevard on the west, in Spring Valley Township, now a huge housing development. The drag strip ran through the northeast part of the course. It was first built 40 feet wide and 4,800 feet long, then widened after the early races.

The first drag race, on December 12, 1965, was mostly a local test of interest and drew 186 entries. Leo Margolian was manager at the opening. Races followed on Sunday, January 16, 1966 and on January 30, run under AHRA rules. Interest was strong enough that the track was widened to 60 feet and took on AHRA sanction, opening the wider strip on March 13, 1966 with an A/Gas supercharged match race between K.S. Pittman and John Mazmanian. Mazmanian won before 3,853 people, though Pittman had the quicker run at 10.15 and 144.46 MPH. Racing ran the second and fourth Sundays, and lights went in for night racing starting June 26, 1966. The track never hosted a national event, but it booked names like Don Garlits, Jim Dunn, Tom McEwan, Kenny Safford, Willie Borsch and Jim Liberman.

Each February from 1967 through 1969 it ran the Stardust National Open Drag Race Championships. In 1969, 7,500 fans saw Don Prudhomme beat John Mulligan in top fuel at 6.94 and 216.86 MPH, though Mulligan set a strip ET record of 6.85. Garlits set the strip speed record at 225.56 MPH, and Danny Ongais won funny car. After the hotel was sold in 1969, the new owners mostly ignored the raceway and the racing faded out. The land went to a real estate developer, and nothing of the track is left.