Tri-City Dragway (Saginaw)

Reed Draper, who owned a GM dealership in Saginaw, built this quarter-mile strip in 1965 on the east side of Tri-City Airport, now MBS International Airport. It opened in 1966, 4,500 feet long and 60 feet wide, with a six-lane staging area paved for 600 feet, 50,000 square feet of paved pits, and a 1,000-foot paved fire-up road. In its prime it booked the big exhibition and match racers and drew large crowds. It was NHRA-sanctioned by 1967, racing every Sunday from April through October. Chuck Kurzawa, who drove fuelers there from 1967 to 1974, called it the best strip in Michigan.

A dispute closed it in 1978. Rain canceled a spring event after sportsman racers had paid entry fees, and manager Bill McKenna wouldn’t honor those fees at a later race. The racers boycotted, McKenna held firm, and the owner ended racing. GM used the strip now and then for testing. A 1990 effort to reopen failed because the pits sat on land leased from the airport, while the strip and parking were private, and the airport commission refused to renew the lease. The airport bought the strip and parking land in the late 1990s.