I’ve always considered my native North Carolina to be the “Land of Plenty” when it comes to having an abundance of dragstrips from which to choose. I’ve jokingly told people that here in the Tar Heel State, you could strike out driving to your favorite track and pass a half dozen on your way! That might be a slight exaggeration, but still, there’s plenty of drag racing opportunities in all directions.
Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared in DI #197, the 30 Under 30 Issue, in November/December 2025.
The track I’ve got on my mind this month, however, is one of those “best-kept secret” kinda places, and for a variety of reasons. For starters, Northeast Dragway is among the newer constructions in North Carolina, with a build date of 2000, while other vintage local tracks date back to the 1950s. The obscure location of Hertford is another reason that many racers have never even heard of the place. I live in the western region of North Carolina, and to complete the 331-mile trip to Hertford takes over five hours. As the name gives a locational clue, Northeast Dragway is indeed located just below Virginia, and not terribly far from the Atlantic Ocean.
I first laid eyes on the place in 2012 and met Curtis Trueblood, who built the track and operates it with his family to this present day. During our first interview, he told me that he didn’t have a drag racing background, so I asked the obvious: “What on earth were you thinking?!” He laughed and told me that would probably be a good question for a psychiatrist. Mr. Trueblood always has time for an interview whenever I drop by, and at some point he’ll usually have me cracking up with his sharp wit.
During that first meeting, he told me he originally acquired the property for the purpose of logging it, but after it was cleared and reseeded, he thought the parcel was dimensionally perfect to build a dragstrip…and a fine one he did build! I’ve stopped by probably seven times since that initial visit in 2012, and I’ve often noted that some of the finest looking sportsman cars I’ve ever seen race here – and many of them I’ve never seen anywhere else.
I was feeling more adventurous than normal during a recent trip to Northeast Dragway, and since I had no particular place to be in the days that followed, I decided to spend some time at the Outer Banks, since it’s only 60 or so miles further east. I’m probably not the only one who has a penchant for beautiful hot rods and nautical adventures, and besides, there’s definitely lots to see and experience along this historically significant string of barrier islands.
From Northeast Dragway it’s a fairly short drive to Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Brothers made their famous First Flight back in 1903. To be precise, though, the iconic 12-second liftoff actually took place on the sand dunes of present-day Kill Devil Hills, but since that wasn’t an incorporated town at the time, nearby Kitty Hawk got the credit. The precise flight location in Kill Devil Hills is now home to the Wright Brothers National Memorial, which is definitely worth visiting.
The Outer Banks is also home to five lighthouses, but I skipped the first four and went straight to the granddaddy of them all: Cape Hatteras, which is actually the tallest in America. A short walk from the lighthouse is the Museum of the Sea, where I spent hours and hated to leave!
By now, it was late in the day, so I stopped at a local diner to devour a seafood sampler, then found a campground beside the ocean. I rolled out a sleeping bag in the Drag Illustrated van and listened to the waves crash. Now that’s my kinda camping!
The following day, I drove to the town of Corolla, hoping to get a glimpse of the wild horses that inhabit the area and can sometimes be seen running on the beach, and while that would have definitely been the highlight of the trip, the resident horses were hiding on this day.
No worries, though. I can’t wait to return, and I would encourage anyone to take the Northeast Dragway/Outer Banks Adventure tour! It’s completely self-guided, and brimming with endless possibilities.
This story was originally published on December 19, 2025. 
