Vargo Raceway: A Dragstrip Lost in Time

The gentle, rolling farmland near Allentown, Pennsylvania is not where you’d expect to find a drag strip. There are cows and barns with silos and good ol’ boys riding green John Deere tractors down picturesque dirt roads … and in the middle of the farmland there’s a half-mile strip of faded black tarmac, reflecting the heat of the morning sun. The strip is weathered and cracked and surrounded with low scrub growth. It’s obvious the strip hasn’t been used in a long time, but it’s still there, and has a special history of high-speed eighth- and quarter-mile elimination racing that stretches back to the late 1950s.

Local historian Joe McNally has done some digging into the local records department and pieced together the history of the strip: the people who built it, dropped the flag, and raced there. Check the Facebook page here. The strip has been closed since 1970 but here’s the story; back in mid-1950s a local hot rod club, the Lehigh Valley Timing Association needed a place to race. They turned to a local radio personality Dopey Duncan Geringer for help and he managed somehow to get permission in 1955-56 from the small, local Convair Field Airstrip for weekend racing.

The new weekend drag strip didn’t sit too well with the neighbors, who fought hard in local court to close it, saying that a drag strip would attract unwanted, unsavory and possibly criminal elements from Philadelphia and New Jersey. The local politicians caved-in to the pressure and closed the weekend strip.

Within a few months a new possibility developed: A second local car club – the Sidewinders – was looking for a place to race and they appealed to a local property owner and drag race enthusiast Jake Vargo for help. He thought it was a good idea to build a strip that could bring young people together and provide them with a supervised place to race their fast machines. He cleared and leveled a piece of his farmland and started construction of a new drag strip in 1958.

Again, local residents protested the opening of the strip but this time they failed. The first eighth mile drag event was held April 24, 1960 and the first quarter mile event was held on September 11, 1960. The strip, called Vargo Raceway, evolved into an important venue that attracted racing greats like Ronnie Sox, The S&S Team, Gene Altizer, Fred Bear and K.S. Pittman among others. Even horsepower aristocracy like Big Daddy Don Garlits raced there.

I was invited to visit the 11^th annual Vargo Raceway reunion, held on November 7^th 2009. More than 200 vintage dragsters parked side by side along the edge of half mile-piece of pavement, located on the AGA Farm property. The fascinating mix of cars ranged from hot rods, gassers and muscle cars, to a few survivor slingshot dragsters that had actually raced on the track in their heyday. A more recent rear-engine dragster sputtered slowly along the track for the show.

The site of the track has been granted historical honors by the local Buck’s County, PA government which will preserve and protect the strip’s history and heritage for future generations of drag racing enthusiasts. Today, a quick Google search will pull up an assortment of Web sites and Facebook connections to the history of the strip.

My thanks to Gene Zandomenego and Vinnie of Staten Island, NY who invited me to go with them to the 2009 Vargo event. Their generosity to include me is appreciated.