Thunderbird Raceway (Henderson)

In 1958 the city of Henderson opened a World War II auxiliary airfield about a mile north of Lake Mead to drag racing. A Silver Dollar Drag Races event was held somewhere in or near Las Vegas on March 16, 1958, probably at Henderson, and there had been one Silver Dollar race before it. The Thunderbird Hotel co-sponsored the track, hence the name, but it was also called the Henderson Drag Strip and the Industrial City Drag Strip. The Henderson Industrial Timing Association and the Southern Nevada Charioteers car club reportedly ran the races, usually on the second and fourth Sundays. NHRA sanctioned it around 1959-60.

In April 1960 Jack Chrisman set a Nevada quarter-mile record of 180 MPH in 8.92 seconds in his A/FD. On February 11, 1962, Gary Nielson brought his B/FD down from Salt Lake City, where he had just run 8.87 at 166.92 at altitude. The strip was lengthened and affiliated with AHRA in 1962. Firebird held its third Industrial Days drag championships on April 21-22, 1962, and the $4,000 purse drew racers from all over the West to compete in 66 classes, with Art Arfons making exhibition runs in his “Untouchable” jet dragster.

The strip was the straightaway of the Henderson International Raceway road course. When the road course expanded in 1962, with plans to stretch the straightaway to a mile, there was talk of ending drag racing in case it got in the way, but the work went ahead without disrupting the races. BMI canceled the drag strip lease in 1964. Racers saw it coming and had started looking for a new site, including one on Lake Mead Drive near the Sloan cutoff.