Starlite Drag Strip (Monroe)
Nothing leftNothing left No longer racing, and nothing of the track remains.
- Drag strip gave way to a half-mile dirt oval with seating for 6,000 in 1962
- Raced
- 1960-62
- State
- North Carolina
- What's left
- The site was redeveloped and nothing of the strip remains.
- On the site today
- Demolished in 1985
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- Last race
- 1962
- Surface
- Dirt
- Location
- A mile northwest of Monroe, between the Old Charlotte Highway and U.S. Highway 74
- People
- Mr. and Mrs. Parks Williams, owners and operators
- Elevation
- 601 ft (183 m)
- Coordinates
- 35.00756, -80.57269
Mr. and Mrs. Parks Williams owned and ran this dirt drag strip a mile northwest of Monroe, between the Old Charlotte Highway and U.S. Highway 74. After two years of drag racing they built a half-mile dirt oval on the property in 1962, with grandstands for 6,000, and moved the drag races to Wednesday nights once the oval opened. Frank Spittle raced his ‘51 Chevy there in 1961 as a high school student. He drove about 30 miles to Starlite instead of using a strip near home, figuring his dad would hear about it otherwise, and remembered it as a dirt track that closed a year later when it became a round track. No drag racing has been found after 1962, and the focus probably moved to the oval. Oval racing ended in 1978 and the speedway was torn down in 1985.
