Ghost drag strips and Google Earth

 Warning: Totally OT and a rant at that!
----------------------------
Cool stuff indeed. I'm slowly but very surely getting hooked on Google
Earth and use it for all sorts of stuff. Among them looking for drag
strips both new and old (long story) all over the world. Just got
started on soem Old Ones and it's absolutely fascinating and I just
managed to dig up some jewels and am looking for more. I lived on the US
east coast for a while, in the Wshington DC area and was Google Earthing
for the places I went to like Capitol Raceway, 75-80 (closed but not yet
a ghost strip), Mason-Dixon and such. One of them was Aquasco Speedway
down southern Maryland. That strip was closed in 1978 and I found a most
excellent write up on a return to that strip on
http://www.hotrodder.com/trackforum/messages/4726.html

Not too hard to find on Google Earth, if you plug in "38 33 14.34 N, 76
42 39.52 W" (drop the citation marks) it will take you to the starting
line and you can easily see the old timing tower still standing. It
looked like this during the heydays of the strip,
http://www.bbraonline.com/id522.htmwrt  and if you fly up about half a
mile north of the end of the strip you can also see the old half mile
oval track that was part of the raceway.

Lakeland Raceway just outside of Memphis is closed but not torn away.
Lakeland is known among other things for a cameo role in Two Lane
Blacktop. It also has a memorial site, http://www.lakelandraceway.com  
and I found the strip on Google Earth at "35 13 01.40 N, 89 43 47.42 W"
which will take you straight to the bleach box under the bridge that can
bee seen on the opening picture on the website.

A very classic but now defunct US strip was US 30 up in northwestern
Indiana. A few years ago I found this very fine article with excellent
pics at http://www.lostindiana.net/html/us_30_drag_strip.html  but that
was before Google Earth and other satellite picture sites had come onto
the scene (at least for me). Check the web site and note the picture if
the AHRA shield painted onto the track some ways down the page. I found
the track on Google Earth and sure enough you can see the painting there
as well. Plug in "41 28 31.93 N, 87 16 43.97 W" and zoom in and you'll
see the shield just a few feet above the cross. The picture on the
website is taken from the middle of the strip with the camera pointed
due east.

I also found Oswego after a long while. A real classic but it's in real
poor shape at "41 41 23.38 N, 88 23 9.93 W", but the city is
contemplating saving a small part of it due to pressure from all over
the place.

Another strip I'm looking for is Seneca Dragway, a 1/8-mile strip in
Seneca, Illinois. http://tinyurl.com/27e8tk  If anyone of ye drag race
fans can point out the exact place I'd be much obliged. It's supposed to
be behind "Al's Body Shop" on Shipyard Road. I'm guessing at "41 18
30.71 N, 88 36 17.66 W" but it'd be great if someone could confirm or
deny that.

Then there's like the Thulin Airstrip here in Sweden. The airstrip is
still in place but we don't race there anymore. "55 56 53.11 N, 12 52
2.13 E" was taken during the last race run there and the cross is right
up top of my own pit.

And then my local strip here in Stockholm. Airstrip-based, it closed
forever last fall and Google Earth shows no action but one of the other
satellites took a picture on one of our Saturday races.
http://tinyurl.com/2nvjjz  My car can be seen 70 yards straight north of
the marker, second car to the right of the yellow van of... ...never mind.

Fascinating though, ain't it...

Regards
PiPPi
http://HarleyDrags.com

 
(Snip a dee doo dah)

Here's one for ya. Nebraska Motorplex, formerly known as Scribner
Raceway. It was an old US Air Force base many years ago. Used to
sneak our cars out there after it was abandoned by the government
and before it became a strip. Anyway, I believe it went belly up last
year. Too bad. When I would visit my folks there I could hear the
roar of the engines during race season. My father would say, "That's
the sound of money." Brought a lot of business to a small town.

41 36 39.65 N 96 37 21.31 W

South of Scribner Nebraska a couple miles.

Andy aka Big Stinkie BS#252 SLOB#3

 PiPPi sed:

<snippage>

It's not off topic if motorcycles raced there... and especially if they were
Harleys.
What are the odds?

My two favorites in NJ are Island Dragway... for the local grudge matches
http://www.google.com/maps?hl=en&output=search&q=Island+Dragway&near=Great+Meadows,+NJ
(I used to race there with an A/S VW and hold the record at 18.30. 1970
Stock VW.) <g>
It's all in the start...

And my second is Raceway Park in Englishtown which has one of the biggest
draws in the NorthEast.  Or at least it used to... Even Az Barber used to
come up for the Harley Nationals.  Got some pics somewhere...
http://www.google.com/maps?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&q=raceway+park&near=Englishtown,+NJ+07726&cid=0,0,4947905906457106051&ll@.325731,-74.352711&spn=0,.02&sa=X&oi=local&ct=image

ASSHOLE#104 Len

 AH#104 wrote:


Pretty much 100%.



http://www.google.com/maps?hl=en&output=search&q=Island+Dragway&near=Great+Meadows,+NJ

: ) It's all in having a good time. Looking at me own timeslips, I'm
definitely not one to knock a racer on the absolute ET-numbers.



Whoa... Is Az around?

Regards
PiPPi
http://HarleyDrag.com

 PiPPi said:


Google Earthing  for the places I went to like Capitol Raceway, 75-80 (closed
but not yet a ghost strip), <snip rest>

75-80 is closed?!! Damn, I was there last year, I didn't know they
were closed.  That's where I cut my teeth as a youngin', learnin' to
stage and cut a light. No money there, but that's where everybody
practiced until they were good enough to go to Capital or the big
time, Budd's Creek.  Very first time I raced the old '74 Barracuda
there I got my ass handed to me by a nasty lookin' old rust bucket of
a 73 Camero.  That POS ran 10.01 on street tires without giggle gas,
9.50's with it.  Humbling experience, that... :^)  Ahhh, the good old
days...when gas was cheap and everybody built and raced their *own*
cars...

-Kuda (not always on the track...) ;^)