CALLAHAN, Fla. – As the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office cracked down hard in recent years on street racing, countless drivers shared with the News4JAX I-TEAM their frustrations about having nowhere in the area to race legally.
After many delays, that will soon change.
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Owner David Hicken finally broke ground Tuesday on the new eighth-mile Hicken Power Dragstrip -- the area’s first drag strip since 2017.
The aim is to be open for racing by May at the latest, Hicken said during Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony.
Hicken previously told News4JAX that he hopes the new drag strip can serve as a safer, legal alternative for area street racers.
He said Tuesday that one of the tricky things about street racing is that without a true “finish line,” racers can end up driving upwards of 140 mph in the city streets.
“You have to have a finish line,” Hicken said. “Play, race, but you have to have a controlled environment.”
Hicken said many in the racing community have known people who have passed away from “the need for speed.”
“I’ve got that, man. I’m made up with it. I’m ready to race whatever it is, (but) it is going to be a controlled environment -- as safe as we can possibly make it,” Hicken said. “We’re planning on keeping this place open forever.”
He said the drag strip will have concrete Jersey walls, security and paramedics on site.
“Anything we can do to make it a family safe facility where people can come and put their foot in it and feel it,” Hicken said. “I don’t know of any other way to explain it, but there’s something about that.”
Dealing with delays
Hicken currently operates the Callahan Speedway, a complex where go-karts race on a 1/5-mile red clay track. The oval track near the Northeast Florida Fairgrounds off U.S. 1 includes grandstands, track facilities and a large parking area to the south.
In February 2024, he got the OK from Nassau County to build a drag strip in a field adjacent to the track. But it has taken nearly two years to get all the major permits to begin construction, according to News4JAX news partner Jax Today.
The original planned site for the track had to be moved due to wetlands. It will now be parallel to the go-kart track’s front straight.
Now, the new ⅛-mile, two-lane track will join a smaller motorcycle racing course and one for radio-controlled car racing.
Hicken told Jax Today that the track will cost an estimated $1.7 million, paid for by his family, sponsors and other sources. He said that the track will run along the west side of the property near the existing tree line. The whole two-lane track will be a ½-mile long.
That will include a 60-foot-long concrete burnout and staging area for the cars, then the ⅛-mile asphalt track for racing, with a shutdown area and a dirt area of about 600 feet for emergency stopping. Concrete barriers will flank the track for safety, with side roads so racers can return to the starting line.
While the track is not near many homes, all race cars will have to have mufflers to keep noise levels down, Hicken said, explaining that was part of the deal when the county agreed to approve the permits.
Hicken said once the facility opens, he envisions hot rod and classic car clubs in Northeast Florida rumbling in for the racing and more.
Other local traks
Along with the Callahan project, two other proposals for motorsports parks, with curving tracks designed for racing, have been announced, Jax Today reports.
A 440-acre facility spearheaded by NASCAR and Trans-Am racing driver Scott Lagasse Jr. and his father, Scott Lagasse Sr., would be next to Palatka Municipal Airport.
The plan is for a multiturn racetrack for cars and a smaller one for go-karts, along with meeting facilities and even a hotel.
Groundbreaking on the first phase should be in the first quarter of next year. The total cost is estimated at about $200 million over 10 years.
Also in Nassau County, the 600-acre North Florida Motorsports Park has been announced. It would be built on undeveloped land along County Road 108 west of I-95. Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal, who has a home in Ponte Vedra Beach, is a business partner and would design the track.
There had been a drag strip locally in Green Cove Springs, but that closed a few years back when the site was taken over to store cars.
According to Jax Today, Green Cove Dragway was open from 2013 to early 2017, sanctioned by the International Hot Rod Association. The ⅛-mile drag strip was built on an old runway at the former Lee Field Naval Air Station, a World War II aviation training facility at what is now the Reynolds Industrial Park.
The closest drag strip in this region right now is in Gainesville, the National Hot Rod Association‘s 54-year-old Gainesville Raceway, a quarter-mile track that is 74 miles from Jacksonville.
Jax Raceways, which opened in 1969, shut its drag strip and oval dirt track permanently in 2004 to make way for development on Pecan Park Road.
Jax Today reporter Dan Scanlan contributed to this report.