Sunset Drag Strip (Charleston)

This strip sits about halfway between Sharon and Mercer, a mile north of Route 62 in Charleston. Alex and Marie Theofilos founded it with Alex’s brother George. Frank Zarienga of New Castle won top eliminator in the Sunday races on August 28, 1960. Before the 1961 season the strip was widened to forty feet, lengthened and repaved, and the Corvette Club of Western Pennsylvania held a race there on April 22, 1961. One old-timer remembered that in the early ’60s a six-pack for the tech inspectors got you into whatever class you wanted. The track claims to be the birthplace of bracket racing, in 1961. The Tri-State Hot Rod Association sponsored races in 1964, and on November 1 that year Frank Venturelli drove Dr. Robert Marvin’s A/MSP car to a 7.06 at 105 MPH.

The track sometimes ran a sixth-mile but mostly timed eighth-mile runs. It catered mainly to sportsman racers, with a big name brought in now and then for a match race or exhibition. The Super Stock Nationals started in 1965 and was renamed the Funny Car Nationals after four years, running at least sixteen years in all. The 1967 opener featured a match race by the “Seaton Shaker,” a blown, fuel-injected Corvair from Royal Oaks, Michigan, and Walt Arfons ran his jet funny car on July 25, 1967. Friday night bracket racing also began in 1967. On June 23, 1968, 18-year-old Anthony Barry was killed when he lost control past the finish line and rolled over and over, the only fatal accident in the track’s history. The strip became Charleston Raceway Park in 1983. It closed after 1994 and stayed shut almost ten years until Alex reopened it in 2003. After the Theofilos brothers died, racing stopped. Some buildings remain, but the track is breaking up fast.