San Diego Dragstrip (Paradise Mesa?)

Thanks to John Hansford who found it on the Torqued Up forum in England

Paradise Mesa was a airfield near Naval Auxiliary Air Station Brown Field

After the war the field closed in 1946, having completed the role of training new pilots.

The Landing Field had a single 3,000-foot east/west asphalt runway. The Navy leased 135.45 acres of grassland from Rancho de la Nación for the Landing Field.

In 1949 the runway became a private civil airport, the Sweetwater Dam Airport also called the Paradise Mesa Airstrip. 

The Airport is named after the nearby Sweetwater Dam that makes the Sweetwater Reservoir. The Airport closed in 1951 and the runway became home to the Paradise Mesa Drag strip. 

The Carlsbad, California's Oilers Club help start the drag strip with the first meet on March 11, 1951. At its peak, 25 clubs were using the strip. The drag strip closed in 1959.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetwater_Dam_Naval_Outlying_Landing_Field

"Awesome Nostalgia" Drag racing.. nothing compares to the experience

Completely off the ground.

This doesn't look like the far lane is going to have a good landing

Why it's more important to have a scattershield around the trans, and the engine in the back. Those flying parts are also rotating, at between 4 to 9 thousand rpm... notice the tires are still spun up... and those spinning discs will slice through any thing that gets in the way. Be careful out there, and have fun.

That's the timing lights in the upper left of the photo, and the front tires are off the ground, the Moon Eyes are looking at the track they'd desperately like to get back to, and the slicks arec oming off the bead of the rim.

Paradise Mesa dragstrip in San Diego

Petty's Barracuda

This is gonna break parts when it comes back to earth

http://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101131