Webb Air Force Base (Big Spring)

Webb Air Force Base in Big Spring wanted to sponsor a drag strip on the north side of the field, with races every other Sunday starting in mid-April 1954. Whether that happened hasn’t been confirmed. On December 30, 1956, the Big Spring Timing Association held its first race in the northwest corner of the base, run under NHRA and Automobile Timing Association of America rules in hopes of joining both groups, and 2,400 spectators came. The next race, on March 31, 1957, cost $1, drew about 1,500 people and gave trophies to 26 class winners. Races ran monthly with help from the Big Spring Lions Club, and a new timing stand was ready for June 30, 1957. Erle Thompson of Hale Center took top eliminator on August 25, 1957, before 600 fans and 94 entries.

Rising insurance rates made September 29, 1957, the last race at Webb that allowed exotic fuels. Lee Christian of Lubbock held the track record going in at 125.10 MPH, and Thompson won top eliminator that day at 113.62 MPH in his B Open Gas car. In 1958 races stayed monthly, with the Aces and Tappet Tickets car clubs helping. The races made money, and the association still aimed to build a Teen-Age Park with a proper drag strip off the airport. In 1959 it was left without a strip when the base put the runway back into service. A Big Spring Drag Strip appeared in a 1968 list of U.S. drag strips in the Swedish magazine Start & Strip.