Looking back at Santa Pod Raceway in pictures as it celebrates its 60th anniversary

It is 60 years since Santa Pod opened its gates as Europe’s first permanent dragstrip on Easter Monday 1966.

The raceway on the Bedfordshire-Northamptonshire border near Wellingborough is located on a former Second World War airfield.

While the dragstrip remains the heart of the matter, Santa Pod has expanded to become much more than just a racing venue over the past six decades.

There is an event of some kind on almost every weekend from the beginning of March to the end of October.

Some 400,000 spectators a year pass through Santa Pod’s gates to experience the varied programme of events on offer.

Santa Pod has dug out some great old pictures of the site from their archive, as shown in our picture gallery below.

But if you have any old pictures from visits to Santa Pod over the past 60 years, email them to [email protected] – we’d love to see them too!