With the recent announcement that Arizona’s Speedworld dragway would be closing down we couldn’t help but think about another dead Arizona strip that was once a hotbed of national level drag racing action and that’s the former Beeline Dragway which was located in Mesa. The remains of the timing tower still stand silently in the desert but nothing much else is left of the place. The AHRA ran their Winternationals at Beeline for years, EJ Potter was first discovered by Eric Rickman and Hot Rod Magazine there, and for its day, the track was pretty modern.
This video from 1969 seems to capture a couple of different days at the track. The main car featured is a cool stick shift Camaro that was some sort of class car. We don’t know if it was in one of the modified classes, stock eliminator, or something different as the AHRA always had something a little different. In one portion of the video we see the car testing on a pretty quiet track but in others it looks as though it is Winternationals time with tents supported by companies like Holley, nitro funny cars like the legendary Ramchargers machine, and staging lanes chock full of killer cars and hot rods.
Not much more to add to this one other than the fact we’re lamenting it isn’t 1969 still!
PRESS PLAY BELOW AND WATCH SOME BAD ASS 1969 ERA DRAG RACING FILM –
