DISCLAIMER FROM HEDGE SPORTS OWNER: This article was NOT written by me, Nickolas Hagy. My friend wrote this blog post, and gave me permission to share it. I highly recommend checking out the original article and website (LINKED BELOW). Any edits made were made with the original author's permission, and I take zero credit for the content in this piece. Please enjoy.
I was perusing old USAC Champ Car stat keeping websites and found something that caught my eye. On the Wikipedia page for the 1971 season, there was a round planned at a track named “Mountaineer Speedway”. If there’s something I have, it’s an unquenchable thirst for knowledge when it comes to auto racing. I had to investigate more, but i didn’t find much. Regardless, here’s all I can find on Mountaineer Speedway, and it’s rise and fall.
Mountaineer Speedway was due to be built in Parkersburg, West Virginia, right along the Ohio-West Virginia border. Throughout most of early 1971, a meadowland was being converted into an asphalt oval of some variety, along with a quarter mile drag strip for an NHRA race planned in June 1971. I wish there was some sort of diagram of this circuit, but I truly cannot find a thing. USAC seemed to be the driving force behind such project, billing a 150-mile National Championship race on August 8, 1971. However, after a late May newspaper clipping, nothing else came of the track. Construction likely halted, and the track was never completed. The 1971 USAC 150 at Mountaineer Speedway, scheduled for August 8th, was canceled on June 30, 1971.
This is, for now at least, where the story ends for this forgotten, unfinished gem. What would Mountaineer look like? What would the races at the track entail? Unfortunately, we may never know for sure. However, I hope I have been able to shed light on this story in some form.
Regardless, Mountaineer Speedway will live on as one of the many American Open Wheel Tracks that never were.
I’ve made this mock-up on Photoshop to show what the race program may have looked like.
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