Retired racer and current Richmond Dragway announcer Nita Barber; revving up behind her is a 1969 Chevy Camaro owned by Brandon Davis. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Richmond Dragway’s first race roared on a Sunday, Sunday, Sunday afternoon: May 17, 1964. For that debut weekend in Sandston, the owners didn’t have money to finish the perimeter fencing, and many spectators walked in to watch the races for free.
The track’s current operator, Johnny Davis, recalls, “They quickly realized that, however they could, they must get the track secured to make sure they were selling tickets, and by the next event, there was clearly an increase in revenue.”
The dragway is where modified street cars and specially built vehicles drive extremely fast for a short distance. They are often loud and garish, and the audience absorbs the sheer visceral delight of watching these machines roar past them as though headed for takeoff instead of a line on the track.
Track founder Dan Weis and Walt Mentzer setting up equipment before a national meet (Photo courtesy Richmond Dragway)
Racer John “Pop” Weis and his family, including his son, Dan, created the Richmond Dragway. Weis, a racing enthusiast, operated Lakeside Auto.
The Weises also owned tracks at a Petersburg airstrip, the fifth facility east of the Mississippi to be sanctioned by the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), and then in Emporia, before settling on Richmond.
“Our family is from the Lakeside area,” explains Davis, Dan Weis’s nephew, “so they were naturally drawn back to Richmond, and the property near the airport fit the objective from a pricing and noise structure.”
They also appreciated the Richmond metro area because of its audience base and the central location that placed it equidistant between Durham, North Carolina, and the Tidewater.
During the mid-1960s, Richmond Dragway became home to the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) Drag Division Spring Nationals. They hosted such “1/4-mile heroes” as Don “Big Daddy” Garlits, who is credited with creating modern drag racing; “TV Tommy” Ivo (who was also an occasional actor); and Connie “The Bounty Hunter” Kalitta, a drag racing pioneer. On Sept. 12, 1964, legendary drivers Richard Petty and Junior Johnson drove in a best three of five match race. The heats featured jet cars and wheelstanders.
The NASCAR Drag Division Nationals ran there through the late ’60s, and Dan Weis sought to purchase the NASCAR Drag Division from the France family when in 1967, his involvement in a severe car crash in West Point, interrupted his plans. “He was still a shrewd promoter following the accident, but it absolutely took some of the wind out of his sails,” Davis says.
If you grew up in Richmond, though, Richmond Dragway’s distinctive radio ads in the late 1970s, with the cowbell and an announcer exclaiming race day with dramatic repetition — Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! — remain unforgettable.The biggest names in the sport were regulars, among them “Cha Cha” Shirley Muldowney, also known as “The First Lady of Drag Racing,” Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “Mongoose” McEwen, who died in 2018 at the age of 81.
Nita Barber, who grew up around her father’s garage, first came to the dragway to watch the funny cars. This was around 1970, and these were the fiberglass cars that were fitted with parachutes that unfolded out of the back to stop them. The world of speed fascinated her.
“This was back in the Shirley Muldowney days,” she recalls. “I was just attracted to fast cars for some reason. I met a guy who had a race car — and he even built one for me.”
The hours-long NASCAR races didn’t much interest her, but driving extremely fast for a brief time was definitely her speed.
She once hit 130 mph to win the 1/4 mile, “way back in the 1970s,” and during one heat, behind the wheel of a 1972 Camaro with a 427 cubic-inch engine, she almost hit 200 mph.
“It’s a new race every time,” says Barber, who moved from behind the wheel to the microphone, as the track’s current race announcer. “I enjoy the competition.”
In her circuit-racing prime, Barber was the only woman living here who raced on the track. “It’s a guy-girl thing. Because of the circuit I was running faster than the local guys, and that didn’t set well with them.”
These days, there are six female competitors in the modified class at Richmond Dragway, which are street cars modified for drag racing. A junior class driver, Allison Loyd of Doswell, recently finished third in the points. “She beat a lot of guys who’d been driving a lot longer than she has,” Barber says.
Barber enjoyed racing despite the rigors of the road when driving for a time in a circuit: “It was me and with seven other girls.” They raced at venues from Florida to Canada, but because they all had jobs and families, they only raced on the weekends.
When she started out, the cars were similar to those in Richmond Dragway’s parking lots. They were hauled in an open trailer, but drivers did not share what they were running under the hood. “Now, everybody helps everybody,” Barber says. “It’s developed into a good family event.”
Off the track, Barber notes wearily how bad drivers are, and how careless. Sometimes she’s annoyed when someone blows past her on the highway, and the temptation is great to show them what’s what. But that isn’t safe.
“People don’t understand how you really just have to be aware all the time when you’re behind the wheel,” she says.
Richmond Dragway is now a “local/regional facility,” as Davis puts it, managed by himself and his wife, Allison. Programs include Elapsed Time Bracket Racing (which allows for a handicap when predicting the speed of two cars on the track); and Test and Tunes, in which anyone can put their car through the speed trial, though there is no prize money. The RVA List, which puts street-legal cars and trucks in competition, draws big and varied crowds. “It has always been a sport that crossed racial and economic barriers,” Davis says. “It’s quite the sight to behold with such a diverse fan base.”
