Section H
History
The short version: a sanctioned meeting at an opencast coal mine at Kōpuku, south of Auckland, in 1966; a decade of aerodromes and closed roads; the first purpose-built strip at Meremere in 1973; a second at Thunderpark near Hastings that came and went; and a split in 1993 that produced the association that sanctions the sport today.
The long version is scattered across club newsletters, newspaper columns and the memories of people who were there. We work from published sources, mainly the New Zealand Drag Racing Association's own history and digitised newspapers on Papers Past, and we mark the places where the record goes quiet.