Drag Illustrated Issue 140, January 2019 | Page 55
DIALED IN
It’s All in the Name
Ardmore Dragway trades cow pastures for horsepower
Story & Photos by Van Abernethy
W
hen it comes to hanging a catchy
name on bracket events, nobody does
it better than Oklahoma’s Ardmore
Dragway, which has some of the most
humorously enduring labels to de-
scribe their races.
Take the legendary Cow Pasture Nationals for
example, a meet that’s now in its 46th year. The
naming of this event was much more than a witty
moniker, but rather a true-to-life situation for Ar-
dmore Dragway back in 1972 when the event was
launched. In those days, the property on which
the drag strip was located was actually owned by
the city of Ardmore. The city also leased a portion
of the land to local farmers for grazing rights
for their cows, and since there were no fences to
separate the track from the free-roaming cattle,
Ja n u a r y 2 0 1 9
the races were routinely halted until the cows
could be chased off the track! “Ardmore Dragway
was literally in a cow pasture up until the mid
1990s!” laughs Will Carrell, who operates this
vintage facility along with his sister, Danielle Belt.
If you ever visit Ardmore, half the people you
encounter will probably be wearing a Cow Pas-
ture Nationals T-shirt, and it’s probably the most
heavily attended event all year, with roughly 300
bracket cars showing up to battle it out for cash
and trophies.
Another event that’s gaining energy is the
Windmill Nationals, named after the numerous
wind farms in the area. “I was gonna hit up the
wind farm people about sponsoring the event, but
I’ve yet to get that nailed down,” explains Carrell.
“Same thing with the local oil companies, which
was the inspiration for naming our Oil Patch
Nationals event.”
Bracket racing here at Ardmore is what the
track is best known for, and each and every event
has some sort of catchy branding attached to it.
This legendary track comes from humble be-
ginnings, and long before they raced in the cow
pasture, the original location for the track was
south of its present home and dates back to 1954
when it was started by the Slowpokes Car Club, of
which Will and Danielle’s grandfather, Joe Car-
rell, was a member, along with other local racers
Dennis Labors and JR Shaw. Back in those days
the official track name seemed to change every
few years. “I once found an old sign that reads
‘Lake Murray Dragstrip’, so apparently, it was
called that at some point,” Carrell says.
DragIllustrated.com
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