Beech Bend Raceway Park today is a complex consisting of a 1/3-mile paved oval and a 1/4-mile NHRA drag strip, located in the Beech Bend Amusement Park near Bowling Green, Kentucky. The drag strip's beginnings are not well documented and different sources contend about when it first opened. Allan E. Brown, a historian of American race tracks, asserted that a 1/4-mile dirt drag strip operated from 1951 through 1954. That assertion is patently wrong as a 1954 aerial photograph shows no drag strip on the property. An article in the August 12, 1956, Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer proves that there was no drag strip on the property before 1956--and that a drag strip was on track to open in September 1956. Russ Melvin, the newspaper's sports editor wrote, "The Beech Bend Park track there has decided to build a drag strip and will hold drag races in conjunction with its regular [oval track] program. The strip is to be completed by Sept. 1." Charley Garvin, the owner of the 400-acre amusement complex, was able to get a track ready in time to hold its first race on September 23,1956. The Black Hawks Rods and Customs car club from Franklin won over forty trophies during the races held in 1956. An article in the Nashville Tennessean reported that the first race in the 1957 season was held on April 14. That race drew about fifty cars from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. Top Eliminator was garnered by Robert Burris from Franklin, Kentucky, running his '57 Mercury in the Super Stock class. More light was shed about the track's beginnings in a 1959 newspaper article. It mentioned that Garvin built a half-mile dirt drag strip. The first quarter mile was for racing and the last quarter mile was for shutdown. He had been running a 1/3-mile dirt oval track, but after becoming alarmed at the increasing number of highway accidents from drag racing, he added the drag strip. "We might as well bring it [drag racing] out into the open," Garvin said in the 1956 Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer article, "set up rules for it and try to control it on a special strip." When the strip was first built, only 15-20 cars from the immediate Bowling Green area raced at the strip. But its popularity grew and by 1959, the strip drew about 150 racers from a three-or-four state area. And the increasing speeds of the racers had necessitated the strip being lengthened to over a mile. The strip was also paved in 1958 for the first 6/10th of a mile, with plans made to finish paving the remainder. $300 was divvied up weekly between the winners of the four eliminator categories, with trophies awarded to the winners of any of nineteen classes. When the strip first opened, there were no trophies--only the satisfaction of winning and beating another racer. The track record in 1959 was just a shade over 11 seconds. On October 18, 1959, Beech Bend held its first Kentucky Open Drag Racing Championship. The purse of $700 was the largest ever offered in the state. David Garvin managed the track in the early 1970s, operating every Sunday from March through September. One black mark in the strip's history happened during an NHRA national event on May 27, 1979. Eighty-eight people were arrested in what newspapers described as "rioting," when police were pelted with rocks and bottles while trying to quell the situation. A fight began when a man was dragged from his van and severely beaten. His van was burned and pushed into a river. It was a dark day in the track's history. Read Don Jensen's recollections of attending a drag race at Beech Bend in 1957 when the strip was dirt in Memories (Kentucky).

 

Located on US 27, five miles south of Lexington, this track was sanctioned by NHRA in 1965. In 1967, races were held every Sunday and Roger Ferguson was the track manager. Ronnie Chasteen wrote, "I raced there during the late 60's . . . .Just about every Sunday I went to the drags instead of church." On September 22, 1968, Dave Zachary was killed while driving his '67 Cadillac Eldorado funny car during a match race at Bluegrass. His car barrell-rolled after passing the finish line and the roll cage collapsed. By 1969 or 1970, improvements made to the track enabled it to garner NHRA sanction. On August 10, 1969, Bob Parham set a track ET record with a 7.53 clocking in his AA/D. One month later, Tommy Ivo set a new track record with a run of 6.92 at 223.88 MPH. In September 1970, the track hosted a two-day NHRA division race. The pro class winners were Ronnie Martin (TF), Paul Radici (FC), and Arlen Vanke (Pro Stock).  In 1977, the track was sanctioned by IHRA. The track hosted a 2-day IHRA points race on April 23-24 in 1977 and on May 6-7, 1978. This track is now on the footprint of Industry Parkway, in an industrial area about two miles north of downtown Nicholasville, just east of Highway 27.

 

Today's Dragstrip Road, a residential street, marks the site of Campbellsville's old drag strip. The Kentucky State Championship Drag Races were held on November 15, 1959.  In its early years, it was called Central Kentucky Drag Strip. A 1960 historic aerial photo shows the layout of the old strip, possibly during its construction. In 1966, the strip opened under the management of the Danville Sportsdrome Speedway. At least by then it was being called Campbellsville Drag Strip. Charles Denton was the strip's new manager and Peanuts Moore was in charge of classifying and inspecting the cars. In July 1966, races were changed from 1/4-mile to 1/8-mile and from Sunday night to Saturday night. But 1966 was apparently the track's final year as documentation could not be found after that year.

Thorn Hill touts itself as the oldest continuously-running drag strip in the nation. Pomona, Bakersfield, and other strips predate it, but they don't operate a regular schedule of continuous races. Redding Dragstrip in California, which has run a regular program of continuous races possibly since 1951, may predate it. The 1/8th mile strip is located at 14114 Kenton Station Road in Morning View (near Kenton). The track opened as Thorn Hill Lake Drag Strip and was run by a local northern Kentucky car club. The club received some tires to raffle off for the drag strip they were trying to get going. The track was originally the Thorn Hill Airfield. It was built during Prohibition by bootleggers who were transporting moonshine by a small airplane. The early drag strip was operated by Ralph Payne. Dick Weinle, a Cincinnati native, started racing there as a teenager in 1954. "It was a dirt track then," he recalled.  Races were conducted in 1955 by the Valve Jumpers Club. In 1956-57, the Motor Exploders car club managed the strip. The surface was graded dirt that was oiled down to eliminate dust. Eventually the starting line area was paved. Sections of the strip were paved over the years until the entire track was paved by 1958. Due to a 1973-court-mandated noise ordinance, they only are permitted to hold races for six hours a week on Saturdays. It is a family-owned and operated business.In 2008, Gerald Meyer purchased the facility, and made improvements to the burn out boxes.