Racing on an Abandoned Drag Strip Is the Most No-Prep Thing You'll See Today

While it's sad to see Georgia's main racing venue being dropped by the NHRA, it's one of many tracks that have been retired over the decades. Many of them have disappeared altogether under residential and commercial buildings, while others have been consumed by the elements.

The latter are often referred to as "ghost tracks," and there are quite a few spread throughout the United States. Coeburn Airport Dragstrip, located in Coeburn, Virginia, is one of them. And unlike most "ghost tracks," it has held up to the test of time quite well. Especially since it hasn't been used for drag racing since the early 1970s.

Unlike Atlanta Dragway, Coeburn Dragstrip was a rather small venue. According to DragZine, it was run as a race track by a gentleman named J.B. Tiller from 1964 to 1971. It also remained an operational airstrip until 1994. Come 2021 and Coeburn Dragstip got its first taste of rubber in 50 years.

The folks at Boost & Bad Habits got an invitation to race there and, fortunately enough, got some of the action on camera. The surface is obviously far from ideal. Not only covered in puddles and mud, which were eventually cleaned up, the lanes are also quite bumpy.

But this group of no-prep racers were up to the challenge and spent an entire day running quarter-mile sprints. And it sure seems like they had a blast. After all, Coeburn Dragstrip is the finest example of a no-prep surface outside a public road and these racers managed to bring it back to life after half a century. This is what real racing is all about folks!