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This Film Featuring Late 1950s Drag Racing At Sanford, Maine Is Spectacular – Horsepower Time Travel


This Film Featuring Late 1950s Drag Racing At Sanford, Maine Is Spectacular – Horsepower Time Travel

In these weird times we’re all kind of looking for something simpler, right? Well it got no simpler than drag racing in the late 1950s. Car Clubs would get together on the weekends, they’d run at air strips, unfinished roads, industrial areas with police clearance, and where ever they could. The events were unpretentious and are basically gatherings of the hot rod clubs of the area running their own stuff for fun, for grudge matches, and for bragging rights as to who had the fastest car. Sanford, Maine became one of the most important drag racing spots in the New England area and arguably the largest before the opening of New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire.

This video was made in what I believe was 1959 as the latest model car I spotted was a 1959 Plymouth Savoy. There are neat 1950s hot rods and street cars getting after it. There is a 1957 Ford convertible that seems to be a total mangler out there, leading virtually every run I saw it make. One of the hallmarks of this this era of New England hot rods were the square roll bars that the machines sported. It’s almost like the tubing bender had not made it east of the Mississippi at this time in history.

There are people who will see this film and be able to identify some of the cars that they see. I’m hoping that ID shows up in the comments section because the history of this stuff is fun. The “timing tower” here that you can see was raised and lowered each week. The runway was active six days a week with big white Xs painted on the ends when racing was taking place.

The formative years of drag racing in New England. It’s really fun to watch.

Hit the image below to check out some awesome late 1950s drag racing in Maine –


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4 thoughts on “This Film Featuring Late 1950s Drag Racing At Sanford, Maine Is Spectacular – Horsepower Time Travel

  1. Ted

    Great historic footage of 50’s drag racing! (I was hoping to see the ‘55 Chevy ragtop race that ‘55 Ford ragtop). Thanks BandShift for posting this.

  2. old guy

    Before my visit to Sanford as 10/11 yr old in 64/65 — not sure of the year
    Saw the super stock (?) ‘ Hodges Dodges ‘ and the ‘ Ramchargers ‘
    cars run .. pretty cool at that age

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