As most NASCAR history buffs know, Lakeview Speedway just west of Lexington NC was one of the tracks on the inaugural 1948 season, and only lasted a couple more years. We've been searching for this track for a few years now, and to the best of my knowledge nobody here a RacersReunion (or anywhere else on the internet) has found the definite location.
I finally found it. 
looks like they made good of turn 3 and 4 as an on ramp. if you go down to street level and really pretend you can see the whole track, but in reality I can see the faint footprint as you show.. good detective work Robert ..
Okay! Thanks for the find!
Great work, Robert! You are correct, nobody seemed to know the exact location of Lakeview. The new highway being built over the original site made it tough to discover. Glad you found it!
Robert, Great find. I thought this track operated as an independent or outlaw track up until the late 50's or was there another track in the same area that was open until then?
That's a good question, Dennis. I know there were at least 2 other tracks very close to Lakeview on the other side of the river. One was Salisbury Fairgrounds. I found another large track once that was near Salisbury and I think someone here identified it but I can't remember where or what the name was. I will look through more aerials to see if I can find those again and post them.
As far as how long Lakeview was active, I just don't know. I was under the impression it was over by the early '50s.
Here are some later aerials of the track. The first one is from May 9, 1951 and it's hard to say but it looks like it is in disrepair. It looks like the beginning of the back stretch is washed out.
The second aerial is from April 11, 1960 and shows trees growing in the track that look quite a few years old. It's up for speculation as to when the track was last used until someone finds some documentation like dated newspaper articles. I would love to know.
I wonder if that was a coincidence or on purpose? It seems it would save a lot of work to just use the banking of the track for the ramp.
It was fun!
Thanks, Bobby. Are there any other unfound tracks left? I'll be bummed if there aren't. This is just too much fun.
Robert, what aerial source is this?
It's the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Explorer - http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/
You must register to download. You type in a city or address, select "aerial photo single frames", and it will bring up aerial survey photos dating back to 1948. Some photos you can download a medium or high resolution(82MB), others only medium (15MB). But they are very large tif files. The high resolutions are so big I couldn't view them on my computer, so I tried uploading them to my Flickr pro account and low & behold it took it, although it took 15 minutes to upload. Then I deleted the huge file from my computer. From Flickr I was able to take screen shots of specific areas like the race tracks.
I can't even remember how I came across it, but it is awesome!
Robert, check this out...........1966-1972........Little River, SC
33,52'03.50"N
78,39'09.37:W
I got Greenland the first time I entered those.
Okay, now I'm seeing some NASA infra-red satellite images of Little River/ SC coastline. Cool!
So Bobby, is Earth Explorer something you were already using? I couldn't remember which ones you had already showed me.
Yep, you're on the right 'track' now.
Sorry Bobby, I'm just not getting what you're hinting at! What am I looking for?
There was a race track at that site, Little River Raceway, late 1960's. None of the conventional aerial sites go back far enough to have it. I thought the historic aerials may show it.
I think I found it, Bobby. It's unfortunate they didn't have more from the dates the track existed, but you can see it in the infra-red shot from '72, and then what's left in '75 -
That's it Robert, the oval to the left center of the photo. The site is now 'Eagles Nest Golf Course', thanks.
Robert, is this the Highway 150 Exit, the first exit north of the Yadkin River on I-85?
Yes, that's it! The cloverleaf that follows turns 3 & 4 of the old track is actually the on ramp from highway 150 to southbound I-85, so you would be driving the turns of the track backwards. I believe it's a coincidence the ramp follows the track, but it's still cool.
I thought it was. I think it is a coincidence too but it is still pretty neat. That on ramp is new. It was added during the widening project that just finished up. I believe the old south bound I-85 lanes ran across the 3rd turn. Too bad we did not know it was there before the widening project started.
