Official Website of the

A Drag Strip Grows in Texas
Contributed by Howard Deshazo

That was back in the 50's. You know? That was fifty years ago? It was about ten years after a big war. Hurdles of young guys out of the service, had taken advantage of the GI bill for college and many still unmarried.  They were in love with the cars Detroit was building. Hot Roding and customizing began in California and it was spreading. This love affair with the car was spreading like wildfire.

While living In Amarillo, TX I met some guys who had started an Auto Club and I joined. It was an instant pleasure for me for I was sharing my experiences with my car with others that were interested. 

Later, I moved to Big Spring where I met a couple of guys who shared my interest in cars and we formed a  club. We discussed many times how great it would be to have a drag strip.  Others joined our club that were also interested in how their car would perform on a strip. From that meager beginning a dream began to come together;  you will see the results  as you scroll ever downward.  We got it started and the young guys (16/20) that hung around us picked it up helped us just do it!  I look at these pictures and I still see them as they were then -- however -- these guys got older pushing me right ahead of them. 

 Anytime I found the chance I talked drag strip to anyone who would listen.  I met a gentlemen, Ted Grobel,  who was quiet prominent in the oil business. He was a member of the local Lions Club and invited me to speak about my ambitions. I'm not sure that I ever found a group of people from a small West Texas town as eager to help as these. Without them my dream, theirs also, would never have materialized. We brought Drag Racing to a place named after a spring, a spring that had been dry for a hundred years.  Somehow, with the help of Ted Grobel we gained the support of the City Of Big Spring, it's people,  businesses, the U. S. Air Force and brought drag racing to the sands of West Texas.

   The people of this town were willing to let us give it a try. They helped by turning out to watch what we were doing and paid to do it. I will, and I know the guys that were with me, be forever grateful. I was heartened to find that a car club still exists in Big Spring, TX.  You might want to see what they are doing down there fifty years after we got things rolling.  Please feel free to go to that site for I know you will be welcome there.   www.bsrc.org 

" On November 5, 1956, at a meeting of the new Big Spring Lions Club, Capt. R. O. Franz, then stationed at Webb Air Force Base, moved that "A Drag Strip For Big Spring" be adopted as the club's "project of the month." From that point on, things happened fast. Less than 55 days later Big Spring had its first full-fledged drag event, backed by every civic organization in the city and sanctioned by NHRA.

   Roster of the initial meeting of the new drag strip committee looked like a Who's Who of Big Spring, with a District Attorney, Judge, State Representative, News Editor, City Commissioner, Bank President, YMCA Secretary, School Principal, Physicians, Auto Dealers, Refinery President, and the Commander of the local Air Force Base who held the key to the whole project -- a potential strip site. "

   I stepped into a "Lions" den and came out a lamb with a blue ribbon from the support of all those great people

To Go This Far Was Beyond Our Dreams

I recall thinking - you just got what you asked for - now - what do you do with it?  I called a special meeting of the car club, gave them the results.  We had to come up with a complete operating program to present to the committee in less than 30 days.  I found within the club members individuals that were actually somewhat experienced in different phases of drag racing.  They had not been to one but had expressed interest in and studied the particular operation they were interested in via magazines, talking to others.  I had to run with that. There was no way out. With the help of Wally and NHRA I and the club members put together a complete plan of operation.

The drag strip was an instant success with all the right people behind it in the beginning. I think that those involved in the first phase were astonished to see the response.  The local newspaper (Big Spring Herald®) was involved and was responsible for the opening date to be seen and many papers surround Big Spring.

Proceeds from the first two race were enough to buy the latest Chrondek® Timing equipment, scales, power generator and PA systems. Free gas was given away by the tank full to the towing vehicles and on occasion free hamburgers.  The strip was a non profit venture.

I designed, a local oil jobber Ted Grobel provided the funds and workman for, and , perhaps built the first mobile timing unit just for drag racing, maybe anywhere in the country. A mobile generator provided the power to run the timing equipment, the P. A. system and the air-conditioning. We could set up in a lonely, isolated spot and provide accurate measurements of speed and time in the quarter mile with our newly purchased Chrondek® timing system, as far as I know, the first in the State of Texas. Prior to Chrondek we used the old faithful, the old stop watch. We had no way to clock the speed.

We later used the timing unit to hold drags in towns so small no one would ever believe could have happened. There were many old abandoned air strips after the war not being used. The timing trailer unit was first built with a flat front, however, on trial runs it was found that the old 1949 Ford Delivery van with a flathead V8 - simply couldn't compete with the wind drag. Back to the shop provided a "V" front which eliminated that problem and allowed for air-conditioning and the ability to cruise in the wind.

Two auto-clubs in Big Spring set it all in motion and provided the hard work to make it work - the "Aces Auto Club" and the "Tappet Tickers." These guys ranged in age from 17 years to 30 years and performed like a professional crew as good as you might find. Hours of work in the hot, dry plains of West Texas. I wish I could name all of them, however, I can't but I sure remember their faces. They made it happen.

The article in Hot Rod put Big Spring, Texas and drag racing in the desert on the map. We had visitors from out of the oilfields of Western Texas and cities from our Eastern border as well. Some came out of State traveling hundreds of miles.  The nearest drag strip was perhaps Caddo Mills, TX miles away. On our third drag race we had so many contestants that the vehicle owners stepped in to help us weigh, classify and mark cars. (See heading photo at top.)

Out of the association of members of Hot Rod magazine, Wally Parks being the Editor at that time, led to my being appointed an NHRA Advisor for the area.  I talked to Wally many times. Back in those days he was just about the entire office of the NHRA. You could pick up the phone and most times he would answer.  If I am not mistaken I believe NHRA and Hot Rod Magazine shared the same office in small quarters of a block-long complex.

Wally Parks is known to be the "father" of the National Hot Rod Association® which he founded in 1951 in California.  Hot Rod Magazine got off the ground in 1948 and Wally Parks is known to have been associated with it in the late 40's and certainly still was in 1958 when our organization was honored. If you look at the index page of my January 1958 edition, it lists Wally as editor, Bob Greene Managing Editor, Ray Brock Technical Editor, Eric Rickman Photo Editor. In the early days of the 50's and still into 1958, Hot Rod magazine was still in it's infancy. 

Because our mobile timing unit seemed to be the first perhaps of it's kind, Wally invited us to bring it to the NHRA National sponsored drags in Oklahoma City, OK in 1957. I believe it to be one of the first National Sponsored drag races that NHRA sponsored.  It was a tremendous success and saw for the first time fuel used in some of the hot dragsters and cars. I remember Wally saying, "I'm not sure about this - I didn't realize it would come this far." Drag racing was forever changed that year. Prior to that it was a backyard or garage sport where the drivers worked on their own cars at home, some driving them to work for they had no other transportation; racing them on the drag strip on weekends.

That was what it was all about in the first place wasn't it? I suppose Wally and I both recognized that change at Oklahoma City. I, like Wally, felt that suddenly the drag strip might just be taken away from the weekend, backyard and garage mechanics. Although we did not discuss it I could sense that in his conversations. I made one more drag meet the next year. After that one I sort-of just dropped from the scene, satisfied that I thought I had just seen the best of it anyway.

That weekend in Oklahoma City messed with my mind; it sent me home with questions somehow unanswered. I had to wait fifty years to hear that answer from a younger friend, Paul, my drag strip cyber friend. In one of our chats he said: "That style of drag strip, "fly by night", it's sort-of like what they call today "a rave party." "It just pops up out of nowhere, overloads with people and then it's gone the next day." Maybe that's why it was so exciting, the whole spontaneous thing about it that lured teenager and overnight drag racers to these events with a chance to participate." Thanks Paul! I feel better now. That was - "what it was all about" - wasn't it?

It was a hot job walking up and down that quarter mile hunting for a break in a six-stranded bundle of wire. For those of you that are not familiar with it - that's a hell of a lot of wire! We had to roll it out in the early morning to test everything and then roll it back up at almost dark-time. There were always talkfest's after the race and some contested tare-downs making the day a long one. I always came home with a satisfaction though, that we had done something good.

The strip lasted another year. Sputnik and the increased tension between the U. S. and Russia prompted the Air Force to close down for tight security. It was gone almost as fast as it began - but - maybe the footprints of all of us who walked that quarter mile so many times might still be there? The base closed in the early sixties, however, that little old quarter mile strip is still there.

Howard DeShazo
 

Lining them up for the start;1957

Another starting line shot from '57

Motorcycle of to a start

A good start for the coupe

Husband and wife team were consistent winners

A contested tear-down for illegal parts

Snapped this '57 almost at the finish line

The dragster population wasn't very large in those days

Two of our favorites

Giving the gas away

Stockers line up to enter

Weighing in on our full size scales

Changing out the tires, notice the crowd in the reflection

A pleasing sight, a '57 Chevy leaving the line

I must tell you about this one. The 1957 Chrysler 300C in the photos above,  It could run with the best of them. To the right is the engine introduced in that year. This one had the 390 cu in option. Most of the time it ran by itself. Why do I remember this car?  Let me tell you.
Each time this driver came to the start line he would rev the big engine up to it's peak. The 300 had pipes and at high rpm it literally would bend your ears. One one occasion, the driver did his normal revving' - somehow, the throttle linkage passed over center and hung there. After a moment, everyone on the start line acknowledge what had happened and all began to run away from the car expecting the engine to blow apart.
Not the driver. He casually got out of the 300, walked slowly and nonchalantly to the front end, fumbled with the hood latch, calmly reached in and unlocked the linkage. By this time the car seemed to be bouncing on the ground, dirt blowing everywhere from the fan on the engine.  "Shades of pink and blue."  Thank goodness for the Hemi engine. 

The adult Timing Crew

The younger crew counts the money

Well - that's it - except to thank all the guys you see in the above pictures for helping me make the dream come true. Really, they deserve most of the credit for without them it would not have been possible. I hope you enjoyed a piece of history.      

Howard DeShazo