Originally posted by TurboCivicBoy
Been doing some research. There used to be a dragstrip in Pungo here in VA Beach, but the city shut it down in the 80's. I can't seem to find out why though. Does anyone know any more on that subject? That could give us some insight on what to do and what not to do...
I can tell you all about it. The track was actually in Creeds which is south of Pungo down Princess Anne Rd. The entire thing was built on the main runway of an abandoned WWII runway. This is a WWII era picture of the place:
Creeds Airfield
I don't know exactly when the drag strip opened up, but I think somewhere around 1970 or so. The deal was that the entire place was owned by the city of Virginia Beach and they would give track operators only a short term lease on the property. They basically could come along almost anytime and say "your lease is up". And they did do this at least a couple of times. This was the downfall of the place. Nobody would spend the long term money to do major improvements with the possibility of the city comming along and saying "You are out" and the next track promoter getting the benefits of the previous owner's investments.
The track was 1/8th mile and in all honesty the runoff room was a little short. It was run as a 1/4 mile track for a short period, but they had a few bad accidents because of the length of the track.
The last promoter tried to develop and entire motorsports park at the place. He included ATV racing, Mud Bog (FWIW that is where the Grave Digger monster truck got it's start), sand and mud drags, and even promoting some autocrossing with and eye towards the remote possibility that there would be a road racing track (which was part of my involvement). This was somewhere around 1980 or maybe a few years later. The drag racing was every sunday with an additional street car night on Wednesday, and whatever other events going on on the Saturday.
He got help in upkeep from the local ATV racing people, autocrosers, etc. in volunteers, but one day the city came along and kicked him out basically because the police really wanted a training ground. I talked to some of the police afterwards about it and in all homesty they were rather arrogant about it all (I am a police supporter in general, so I don't say that lightly). They were sort of proud of ousting all of those "car freaks" so they could go there and shoot their guns, have persuit schools, woods type terrorist training, etc.
Here is a sattelite picture of it today:
Creeds today
If you zoon out one notch you can see how much runway is there. The slightly darker strip in the middle of one of the concrete runways is the part that was asphalt paved for the drag strip. I actually have a color picture out there somewhere that I have seen available on the web. Off the concrete is fairly overgrown today. It could be turned into something useable today, but it would take a selling job to the city. It would never hold an NHRA national event, but it could be a decent small track that could be developed into something useable.
Please don't confuse this with the old airstrip in Pungo that all of us autocrossers autocross on. It is not the same place. Pungo in its current state could really not be used for drag racing, but I have contacts with the owners of the place. I could get you in touch with them. PM me if you are interested in Pungo.