More Memories of Caddo Mills

By Olin Davis

CADDO MILLS.... Enjoyed David Ray's story about it, but he was there in 1960. Thought I'd give you a story telling all about Caddo's history. 

In about 1950, the Chaparral Roadster Club in Dallas conned he city of Dallas into having a drag race on a new stretch of Hampton Road in Dallas (my first drag race.) They announced that on the first Sunday of the month, they would have Drag Races at Caddo Mills Airport, about 25 miles north of Dallas on an abandoned Army airfield. They rented the airfield from the city of Caddo Mills. It was a triangle layout of about 6000 feet of concrete each way. (There was absolutely nothing else there.) 

The first race there was a whoopin' success. Timers were three stopwatches. For a couple of years it went great, then several rod clubs formed the North Texas Timing Association along with the Chaparrals and got Chrondek Timing systems. It became the hotbed of racing in the late '50 s and early '60 s with every big name coming to try to run better numbers on CONCRETE. (A lot of them left heartbroken.) Then Bob McClure built Green Valley, which was the downfall of Caddo. The NTTA joined McClure for several big national events. The old place is now the municipal airport for the city of Caddo Mills.

An interesting thing happened in about '61 or so. A hotshot promoter from Ft. Worth conned the city into letting him have the track for more money. His program puked. So the NTTA got it back. That promoter was the guy who owned the Cellar nightclub in Ft. Worth. It made headlines because that's where the secret service guys were when Kennedy was in Ft. Worth. 

Right now there's a new state of the art drag strip 1/8 mile drag strip within spittin' distance of the Oldie. I was at the first race and at the last race. Crashed and burned there, but had worlds of fun. 

Best to all for Happy New Year. March Meet? You betcha!

Olin Davis
olin.davis@worldnet.att.net