I have recently caught an affliction that lots of gearheads seem to suffer from. I have become obsessed with old airports and airfields now being used by hot rodders as racing facilities. It started a few weeks ago when I found the absolutely tiny Cranland Airport located just two towns over from me in Massachsuetts. This place is a throwback to the days of guys flying with scarfs and leather helmets. It has an 800′ runway, a few hanger buildings, and is largely used by recreational flyers in small planes. It was built for use by crop spraying planes that treated the many cranberry bogs of the area. You’ve seen photos of the place because we recently shot the Ford Taurus SHO there (and in a couple of other locations). While the facility is too small to get anything going with respect to land speed racing or an autocross, it would be beyond cool to run a 100′ or 330′ drag racing event there. Those have been cropping up in our area as circle tracks look for new ways to get people in the door. This place would be so retro awesome for a short distance sprint race like that I can hardly stand it.

Following that, I attended the third land speed race of my life and my first as an announcer at the ECTA’s Ohio Mile in Wilmington, Ohio. This was a fantastic weekend filled with imaginative and awesome racing machines running very hard and very fast on an unused runway that was formerly a hub for the freight shipping company DHL. When DHL decided to pull up stakes and leave an awesome airport facility basically dormant and a town with lots of newly unemployed people, the ECTA was also looking for a new home. They had recently lost their former facility in Maxton, North Carolina. As it worked out, Keith and Tonya Turk along with Joe and Donna Timney met with officials several times, made presentations to government decision makers and were finally granted the green light to hold LSR events on the now unused airport runway. The place is in great condition with a two mile long runway made of concrete. It is smooth and lacking any of the schisms and bumps that Maxton was. The racers universally have praised the place as they have more room to pit in, a nicer racing surface, and it’s faster, too. It dries amazingly well. We had intermittent rain during the event and the grooved surface combined with the fact that there are no walls to block air circulation mean that within 20-30 minutes of nothing more than vehicle traffic rolling up and down the runway, it was dry enough to go racing on. As a die hard drag strip guy, it blew my mind. Hell, ONE of the multiple showers we had that day would have shut down a strip for the day!

Just a couple weeks post that I found myself at Moore Army Airfield located within the sprawling confines of Ft Devens in Massachusetts. I was there to compete with my Caprice Buford T Justice project at an SCCA sanctioned autocross. This was awesome as the course was over a mile long and used two taxiways along with the main runway. Having been away from autocross events for about 10 years, seeing that huge sprawling course was a comfort as it let me really work the car out and it also really showed the areas that need to be improved, addressed to make the big sedan work better. The place, like Wilmington, is no longer used for any type of aircraft traffic. The Massachusetts State Police do driver training there and multiple clubs use the field for autocross events. The runway isn’t suited for any type of land speed racing or drags, mainly because there are strict decibel limits that need to be adhered to due to neighbor noise complaints. SCCA officials were quick to shut anyone down that was violating the noise levels (95db) that the town has imposed on the property as a stipulation of its use.

It doesn’t take long to start thinking about other small airports or other decommissioned military facilities that are currently sitting dormant, just waiting for enterprising hot rodders to put into use. The fact that there are now so many different organizations across the country holding events at places like mentioned above means that there is a honest road map to make it happen in your general area. While on the plane flying out to Denver yesterday I stared out the window for hours and finally gave up counting how many airports/airstrips/air fields we flew over. It was more than 100 after I gave up. I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that many of those facilities are small enough or privately owned, or unused and could become places where informal events could be held. From flashlight drags, to 330′ drags, and if you really want to take on a project, land speed racing. Hell, there’s a new land speed venue coming on line next year in Texas that we know about that’s being held at an airport facility.

We can all complain about how there aren’t enough race tracks and that racing is expensive, and that it stinks to have to go 100+ miles on way to legally compete at your “local track” but the fact remains that there are hundreds, probably thousands, of places dotting the landscape that can be used to quench our thirst for speed and adrenaline. Yes, it will require leg work and convincing people that it is a good idea. Yes, there will be a fight to get it done, but look around at everything that is happening across the nation at these places and it starts to seem like a far less daunting task. From the expansive 2.5-mile runways to Loring, Maine that have held onto land speed runs of more than 300 MPH to the short air strips that gather hot rodders who want to bang through a couple of gears without hassle from the cops, the options are pretty much limited to only your imagination.

I’ve got a bunch more visits to airport racing facilities this summer and I can’t wait. It is motorsports stripped down to it bare essentials and nothing is better than that. Big stands, vendors, big crowds, and flashy signs all serve their purpose at our huge temples of speed across the nation, but I’ll take rusty hanger buildings, bloody knuckle racers, and competition for nothing but personal glory over that stuff any day. Since the end of WWII hot rodders have been racing on runways and today there is a greater opportunity than ever to do more of it. If you know of a place that would be good, get off your ass, contact someone who has actually got the approvals before and make it happen! You’ll be a hero to your local gearhead community and one of the growing number of people who have recognized and opportunity and seized it!