Oakes Field

Windsor Field was handed over to the Civil Aviation Authority after the 1956 Nassau Speed Week to replace Oakes Field as the new airport on the Bahamas. Oakes Field was made available to hold the 1957 Nassau Speed Week on an anticlockwise 5-mile course. The local government provided the finance to build permanent pit buildings, press office and scoreboard and the Speed Week grew ever-more successful and popular. The layout was reduced in 1958 with the direction of racing reversed to avoid the pits being too close to the racing line. The 13th Nassau Speed Week (or 129/10th according superstitious the promoter Sherman “Red” Crise) in 1966 was delayed when the ship carrying the cars was impounded by the U.S. Coastguards. That was the Speed Week’s final hurrah for a change of government ended state support that had once been forthcoming. A dragstrip was included when the site was redeveloped as a sports complex.