By Emily Buehler
Correspondent
If you’ve never been walking on the Occoneechee-Orange Speedway, you’re not just missing out on a peaceful, shady walk through a quiet pine forest. You’re also missing a chunk of local history: The flat main trail, part of the original race track, passes by the concrete grandstand, where you can almost hear the ghosts of spectators cheering as the cars fly past. The winding forest trail, behind the grandstand, passes by the crumbling concessions stand, the ticket booth, and the outhouse, cleverly marked with a toilet seat in the trees.
The speedway was built in 1947, just in time for the inaugural season of NASCAR. It was one of eight initial tracks and is the only one remaining. For readers not up on their state history, stock car racing (like NASCAR) has its roots in bootlegging during Prohibition. Bootleggers altered their cars to make them lightweight and fast, able to outrun the authorities. The cars had to handle well, since they often drove on winding mountain roads. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, drivers still “ran†illegal, untaxed moonshine.
By the 1940s, races of these modified street vehicles were a popular form of entertainment in the rural South, particularly in North Carolina. Bill France built the Occoneechee Speedway in 1947, and it was used for the next 20 years, hosting racing legends Fireball Roberts, Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson. France closed the track in 1968, partly due to pressure from religious authorities, and went to Alabama, where he built the famous Talladega Superspeedway.
These days, the lanes that once roared with spinning tires and flying mud are quiet and still. Leaving a small parking lot, visitors can walk the entire one-mile loop or head off into the woods behind the banked track wall. The Eno River runs nearby, curving around the eastern end of the track. The once-barren track center has re-seeded with pines and sycamores. And this seemingly out-of-the-way green space is located only two miles from downtown.
In 2002, the Occoneechee-Orange Speedway was placed on the National Register of Historic Places along with two other racetracks: the Indianapolis Speedway and the Bonneville Salt Flats, where drivers gathered to challenge land-speed records in the early ‘40s.
This weekend, the Historic Speedway Group is hosting a benefit for the preservation and restoration of the speedway: the inaugural Celebration of the Automobile Car Show. The group’s website (http://historicspeedwaygroup.org) boasts a rambling list of all the events of the day. Foremost is the car show itself, which features five categories of cars: classic, antique, custom, muscle and race. There will be live music, food vendors, free kids’ rides and a live auction of racing memorabilia.
The car show is also serving as the backdrop for a stockcar driver reunion and several famous cars will be on display, including Richard Petty’s 1972 Plymouth Roadrunner and Dale Earnhardt’s Goodwrench Lumina. Check out the website for a display by the Piedmont Distillers, who, in keeping with the roots of the sport, produce driver Junior Johnson’s “Midnight Moon†Carolina Moonshine:
“Junior Johnson’s not racing anymore, but he’s still driving ‘White Lightning.’â€
Whether you’re a frequent visitor on the walking trails of the speedway or you’ve never been, this weekend is your chance to see the cars and drivers of its glory days. Celebrate the past and help save the speedway for the future. The Celebration of the Automobile Car Show is Saturday September 29 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event, located at the speedway on Elizabeth Brady Road, is free to the public.
Reports on this event failed to note the connection between the efforts to resurrect the memory of the Speedway and the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust, the owners of the Ayr Mount property upon which the speedway sits and one of the Celebration’s sponsors.
CAHPT is the creation of millionaire Wall St. financier Richard H. Jenrette who owns 6 such historic homes on the East Coast. One would not expect Mr. Jenrette to be an avid NASCAR fan. And yet in the early years of this decade when it was clear that the NC Department of Transportation wanted to build the long needed Hillsborough bypass via the Elizabeth Brady Road extension and adjacent to Ayr Mount (and presumably through the former racetrack), suddenly the speedway was placed on the National Register of Historic Sites in 2002.
As we all know, Churton Street is the only street that runs north-south through town and it is heavily congested. The State DOT wants to take traffic off Churton and other streets in Hillsborough’s central business district. The idea of extending Elizabeth Brady Road was not new. A 1987 Hillsborough thoroughfare study recommended the road be built from 2000 to 2005. This never happened. In 2004, the State announced it also favored the Elizabeth Brady Rd. route. Bill Crowther, the overseer of Ayr Mount, was a loud voice in opposition to the plan. Having the “speedway” (which at the time was an overgrown field barely recognizable as an oval from the air) placed on the National Register could only help their cause. It is ironic then that celebrating the past auto history of the speedway contributes to the continuing downtown automobile congestion and the failure to realize an efficient transportation route for this growing town.
John Cotterman
Orange County