Santa Ana Drags opened on an auxiliary runway at what airport?

Santa Ana Drags opened on an auxiliary runway at Orange County Airport.

The venue used airport pavement in Southern California during periods when the runway was available for racing. That unusual arrangement gave early drag racers something they badly needed: a long, straight, relatively smooth surface where cars could make timed acceleration runs without using public streets.

Orange County Airport is now known as John Wayne Airport. The airport’s name changed in 1979, long after Santa Ana Drags had closed, so modern references may use either the historical name or the current one. The drag strip itself operated from 1950 to 1959 and is generally credited as the first commercial drag strip in the United States.

This history is easy to confuse with other Southern California racing venues. Pomona Dragstrip became a major later destination for organized drag racing, while Ontario, Long Beach, and Burbank had separate aviation histories. The key clue is the period: in the early 1950s, the airport’s auxiliary runway provided the setting for Santa Ana’s pioneering events.