Nearly forgotten today, Memphis-Arkansas Speedway was one of NASCAR’s largest oval tracks in the 1950s. It was 1.5 miles in length, featured dramatic high banking, and the surface was dirt. Here’s the amazing story.

In 1954, NASCAR’s giant superspeedway in Daytona was no more than a gleam in Big Bill France’s eye. The grandest facility on the Grand National schedule was Darlington Raceway, the oddly shaped 1.366-mile oval in South Carolina, and the the bulk of the racing in those days was performed on bullrings of a half-mile or even smaller. However, there was one big oval on the tour, a high-banked 1.5-mile track located 20 miles west of Memphis—and amazingly, the surface was dirt.

Opened on October 7, 1954, Memphis-Arkansas Speedway was the pride of three local owner-promoters: Clarence Camp, Nathaniel Epstein, and Harold Woolridge. The ambitious track layout, a full 1.5 miles in length, consisted of two 2500-ft. straights connected at each end by two sweeping turns of roughly 550 ft. radius. The track’s unusually high banking in the corners (exact angle unspecified, as far as we can learn) was formed by excavating the dirt behind the turns to form tall embankments, which created two small lakes, one outside each end of the oval. A large grandstand on the front stretch reportedly seated 15,000 spectators. They witnessed average lap speeds right at the 100 mph mark, far faster than any tracks on the tour except for Darlington and the Daytona beach course.

The debut event in ’54 was a 250-mile Grand National race won by the Oldsmobile of Buck Baker, who put five laps on Dick Rathmann’s Hudson in second. The field consisted of 52 cars, and Baker took home a princely $10,959 for his effort, the second-highest winner’s purse of the season. A pair of Grand National events were held in 1955, with Fonty Flock (Chrysler) and Speedy Thompson (Ford) each scoring a victory. The speedway hosted NASCAR Modified and Convertible Division races as well, and there were two more Grand National races in ’56 and ’57. The final Grand National event on the big dirt oval on July 14, 1957 was won by Marvin Panch, driving a new Pontiac owned by Herb Thomas.

In its four short years of operation, the big, fast Arkansas speedway developed a reputation for being both scary and treacherous. In one bizarre crash, future Daytona 500 winner Tiny Lund was thrown from his ’55 Chevy (ironically sponsored by a seat-belt supplier) out onto the track, but he escaped with a badly broken arm. In 1956, two drivers were killed in a single weekend. In practice, Clint McHugh rolled his Oldsmobile in Turn 3, tore through a flimsy guardrail, and plunged down the steep embankment into the lake, suffering fatal injuries. Then on race day, Thomas “Cotton” Priddy lost a wheel in his Chevrolet, hooked a rut in the dirt surface, and flipped end-over-end multiple times, losing his life as well. At the final race in 1957, the caution flag flew for nearly an hour due to the choking, blinding dust.

Promoters Camp, Woolridge, and Epstein had hoped all along to pave the track surface, but unfortunately, they never managed to secure the $100,000 required to perform the improvement. The track was closed before the start of the 1958 season and  the land was sold to a local farmer for agricultural use, its role to this day. While the track, grandstands, and outbuildings are long gone, the outline of the oval is still clearly visible in satellite images, along with the two large ponds on the ends (above). The former race track is located near the present Interstate 40 about two miles west of little LeHi, Arkansas, and 20 miles west of downtown Memphis, Tennessee.