Drag Illustrated Issue 140, January 2019 | Page 57
don’t have the time to race as much as I once
did,” he admits.
Many nationally known racers and team own-
ers are local to the area and frequent the track,
such as NHRA Pro Stock team owner Richard
Freeman and Street Outlaws stars Justin “Big
Chief ” Shearer and Shawn “Murder Nova” El-
lington. Former NHRA Top Fuel star Spencer
Massey bracket races at Ardmore when not on
tour nationally, and in fact, competed in the most
recent running of the Windmill Nationals.
The most documented tragedy to ever take place
at Ardmore happened on March 11, 1985 when Lee
Shepherd was killed during a testing accident at
the peak of his career. “Lee Shepherd’s death hap-
pened two weeks before I was born,” Carrell says.
Various trends and changes in the sport of drag
racing have altered the way things are done at
Ardmore, including racing surface length. “We
used to race on the quarter-mile before switching
to 1,000 feet and eventually settling on eighth-
mile,” Carrell says. “We’ve also been under NHRA
and IHRA sanctions, as well as operating as an
outlaw track, although we made the decision last
season to switch back to NHRA.”
In addition to the many heavily-attended brack-
et races, Ardmore hosts the occasional Jr. Drag-
ster meet and also a popular nostalgia event. The
track usually opens up around late March and run
through the first week of November each year.
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