Here is an Enterprise article from 1963 I found in the Buzzy scrapbook. Photo is of the 235 Drag finishing line painted on the road in front of St.Michael’s School. (It reads “235 Drag Chevy Pont Ford Finish 1/4”)
Accompanying article titled “More Scars” discusses “the long ugly black tire marks” defacing County roads and the prevalence of drag strips around the County. “The dragsters have become particularly brazen. A good example of this is in the First District where anonymous hands have wielded a paint brush in several places along State Route 235.” Article then discusses how dangerous this is and recommends building an authorized drag strip in the County.
However, it is a reference at the end of the article that brought back some bad memories for me when it stated “The County shuddered two years ago when a youngster was killed at a drag race party on the causeway at Pt. Lookout.”
I recall being in my bed in my room at the Store that night of the accident and hearing all sorts of sirens going down the road. My Mom came into the room and informed my brother Steve and me that something terrible had happened at Pt. Lookout and that Ronnie Vestal had been killed in a car accident. Steve and I knew Ronnie even though he was several years older than us. He’d been in the Store several times with his mother Lois and step-father Warren Bradburn.
I was ten years old and it was the first time that someone I knew had died. I remember not being able to go back to sleep that night.