Tri-State Dragway (Kahoka)

This eighth-mile asphalt strip on the Clark County Fairgrounds in Kahoka opened June 26, 1960. Trophies started in fourteen classes and grew to twenty-six by July, and by 1961 races ran regularly on Saturday nights and Sundays. John Kranenburg broke the track record with a 5.72 on June 23, 1962 in Don Mattison’s Chicago ‘Guzler’ A/FD, and on August 11 he ran 152.37 mph, which would have been a world record if he backed it up the next week (no report of that has been found). On June 8, 1963, Jack Sharkey of Chicago beat Arnie Beswick for stock eliminator with a track record of 7.46 and 93.84 mph.

In September 1963 Don Garlits beat the ‘Guzler’ in a two-out-of-three match race. On September 8 he set an eighth-mile world record of 5.14 at 160 mph, the first time anyone broke 160, and the ‘Guzler’ ran 4.96, the first time a dragster dipped into the 4s on an eighth mile. Art Arfons broke the strip speed record on June 13, 1964 with a 5.12 at 165 mph in his ‘Green Monster’ jet. The track joined AHRA in 1965 and booked match races and exhibitions almost weekly through the 1960s. Later years were quieter and more local, and the last record found is from 1982. Mark Ellsworth said a man at the site told him the track closed after the state built a highway around town that cut through the shutdown area.