Thunderbird Dragway (Walnut Ridge)
ClosedClosed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there.
- Said to have been shut down after George Ray visited the mayor with a paper bag full of money
- Raced
- 1963
- State
- Arkansas
- What's left
- A good length of the old track surface is still there, in poor to good condition.
- Raced on
- A military airfield
- First race
- by August 1963
- Surface
- Runway
- Location
- Runway of the former World War II Army airfield at Walnut Ridge
- Sanction
- NHRA
- Elevation
- 267 ft (81 m)
- Coordinates
- 36.12323, -90.93413
Drag racing was going on by August 1963 on a runway of this World War II Army airfield, built around 1942, with NHRA-sanctioned races on the second and fourth Sundays. One old-timer said it lasted only a few weeks. As he told it, George Ray didn’t want the competition for his Sunday races, so he paid a visit to the mayor of Walnut Ridge with a brown paper bag full of money, and that was the end of racing there. It’s a good story and may be true. The airport had been given to the city of Walnut Ridge in the late 1940s.
More in Arkansas
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Blytheville Air Force Base 1984
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Carlisle Drag Strip 1958-77
- Active Still racing today. Centerville Dragway 1977-present
- Nothing left No longer racing, and nothing of the track remains. Excell-a-Rating Drag Strip/Little Rock Drag Strip/I-30 Raceway 1959-ca. 1977
- Active Still racing today. George Ray's Dragstrip (Paragould) 1961-present
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Hope Drag Strip 1965-68
- Active Still racing today. Newport Drag Strip ca. 1964-2019, 2021-present
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Prescott Dragway 1973-77
- Active Still racing today. Prescott Raceway Park 1977-present
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Razorback Dragway (Fort Smith) 1963-ca. 1975
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot (Camden) 1962
- Closed No longer racing, but some of the track is still there. State Fairgrounds Dragway (Little Rock) 2002-ca. 2004