Van Wert County Dragway/Wayne Trail Dragway (Middle Point)

This $100,000 track sat just east of the Middle Point dump, on the north side of the Penn Central Railroad east of Van Wert. Its grand opening on Sunday, July 14, 1968, drew 1,000 spectators and 119 competitors, with a lawsuit from neighboring landowners still pending. Ted Jones, general manager of United Raceways, Inc., which also owned Kettlersville Drag Strip, managed it. On July 28, 1968, Gerry Schwartz ran 173.52 mph and 9.23 in his Mercury Cougar funny car. On October 13, the U/S and Q/S national record holders, Sam Stockwell of Michigan and Sam Shinabery, met in Junior Stock Eliminator, and Shinabery won with a run three-tenths under the national record. On October 20 Pee Wee Foster took competition eliminator at 10.01 and 124.41 mph, under his own national record. Around 1976 or 1977 the name became Wayne Trail Dragway. Bill Kessen filed incorporation papers for Wayne Trail Dragway on April 24, 1979, though he may have bought the track back when the name changed. It was a two-lane strip split by a grass median. Little is left but the timing tower, some track equipment and pieces of pavement near the starting line.