Drag racing: the strip Fort Wayne never had

The documented absence, and what filled it

A negative, with its reasons: No purpose-built drag strip has operated inside Fort Wayne in the record. What the city had instead was a short trip: the nearest documented strip was the eighth-mile at Avilla, in Noble County just north of the city, beside the oval Howard Bice built with South Anthony Speedway's salvaged bleachers and walls; and a Fort Wayne drag racer's documented circuit ran farther — to Muncie Dragway, to U.S. 30 Dragway near Gary, and to Indianapolis Raceway Park, the strips a northern-Indiana memoir of the era names as the ones Fort Wayne-area racers traveled to. The wish for a home strip is itself documented: in the spring of 2011, when the city polled its residents on uses for the $78 million City Light lease legacy fund, a citizen's proposal — "build a drag strip on the east/southeast side of town to create new economic growth" — led the responses, the drag-racing press reported that March. No strip was built.

Sources:

1. Dragzine, "Fort Wayne, Indiana Residents in Favor of Drag Strip Proposal," March 31, 2011 — the legacy-fund poll and the leading drag-strip suggestion.
2. Auto Round-Up Publications, "Growing Up with Old Cars, Model Kits, and Drag Races" (2018) — a northern-Indiana racer's account of traveling from the Fort Wayne area to U.S. 30 Dragway, Muncie Dragway, and Indianapolis Raceway Park.
3. ACGSI, Allen INGenWeb, "South Anthony Speedway" — the removal of the bleachers and walls to Avilla Raceway; the Avilla strip is recorded in the local racing community's track discussions as an eighth-mile.