Drag racing returns to Orange, Massachusetts

Drag racing in New England hasn’t always been relegated to Epping, New Hampshire. In fact, the region saw plenty of side-by-side action from the 1950s onward on a number of tracks, many of them repurposed airstrips. One of the longest lived of those tracks was the one at Orange, M***achusetts, where drag racing will return this September after a 40-year absence.

As part of the annual Orange Airport Dragstrip Reunion, which until now has only featured a pre-1974 car show, the new drags will take place on a 1/16th-mile section of abandoned runway at the airport, use a flagman starter, and will be divided into five heads-up cl***es: Top Eliminator, Street Eliminator, Flathead Eliminator, The Big 4 Banger Shootout, and Exhibition Only. Just 400 entries total will be accepted for the racing portion of the reunion. The car show portion of the reunion will continue.
According to Bernie Shuman’s “Cool Cars, Square Roll Bars,” the Orange Airport drags first took place July 18, 1954, when the M***achusetts Automotive Council – after three years of wrangling with local authorities – received permission to use the airport for “acceleration trials”; they apparently were restricted from calling the drags an actual “race.” Attendance didn’t really pick up at the Orange drags until the NHRA Safety Safari came through town in August 1955 and the following coverage in Hot Rod magazine alerted New Englanders to the presence of the Orange drags. That was the same year the MAC gave way to the New England Timing ***ociation, which ran the drags until the end of racing at Orange in 1970.

This year’s Orange Airport Dragstrip Reunion and Orange Airport Nostalgia Drag Races will take place September 10. For more information, visit DragReunion.com. (via)

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btt

 

I have a very short article from a magazine (don't remember which one), "Orange Airport Back In Business". "For the first time in more than 20 years, racers flocked to Orange Airport in Orange, M***., for an organized drag race. Led by local racer Bob Diamond, over 220 cars and 1000 fans turned out Oct. 25, 1991, for the NHRA-sanctioned 1/8 mile event. Special thanks go to airport commissioner Glen Barnes, who paved the way, and Al Smith of Port-A-Tree Timing Systems, who supplied and setup the timing equipment. The event went so well that there is serious talk of Orange Airport opening in the spring. (Pictured,from left: NHRA tech man Al Glines, M/C winner Mike Wood and Port-A-Tree's Al Smyth" (why they spell Smith/Smyth I have no idea). There are concrete Jersie barriers on the left side of the track, traffic cones marking the center line of the track, and it appears foggy that day. It sounds like the track never did reopen after that race. Maybe this time, but the FAA is really making it hard on tracks operating on airports. Butch/56sedandelivery.