Thanks, Mike. I found some good news after that last article...It seems the fence destroying Otis Roberts turned out to be indestructable himself -
Capella is a tiny farm community just north of Rural Hall and east of Pilot Mountain, NC off highway 66. In the late 40's local stock car racer Otis Roberts putCapella on the racing map for a brief periodwiththeir own half-mile track. Rumor was, Otis was able to attract Big Bill France to a race or twoin hopes he would add it to the circuit. But for whatever reasons, like so many other tracks,it just wasn't meant to be.
**UPDATE** - I've been looking for this track since I made this post 2 and a half years ago. I was thrilled when I found this 1950 aerial showing the paperclip shaped half-mile track. The approximate address is 1330 High Valley Road, behind a house on the left, headed north. Town Fork Creek ran down the east side of the track, which was probably used as the water supply.
The track may have still been in use at this time -
1962 Ghost Track -
Today vs. 1950 -
Edit: Found a clearer aerial photo -
From "The Stokes News" website - March 29, 2010 -
A badly misspelled adwith articlefor a race in 1947...No results were found-
Race articlefrom May 9,1948 -
This may have hadsomething to do with the track's demise -
Here's pics of the concrete grandstands I took on 01/15/14 -
A shot from the top of the hill overlooking the track -
Yes, that is exactly where it was. It also went by Jonesville Speedway or Elkin-Jonesville Speedway.
Swaim Park still shows the shape of the track from aerial view. Also, the concrete grandstands are still there.
Excellent researching. The first article you found gives a nice bit of background of Johnny Rogers' start into racing a stunt driving, and coincides with the race results article about his former injuries. He was a racing hero in the NJ area it seems.
Can anyone tell me more about the race winner Johnny Rogers? From what info I've dug up myself, he had a 5th place at Tri-City Speedway on June 29, 1947 and he won the only NASCAR race at Dover, New Jersey on the inaugural season in 1948. Then he seems to drop off the face of the earth.
The last article above states he raced in the 30's and early 40's (overlooking the typographic errors) and that he had some near death injuries. He really came back strong here in '47 and '48 with his Dover win. Who was this man and what happened to him?? I could find nothing about him anywhere on the internet.
Thanks for the great story of Barney Hall at Elkin, Billy. Has Barney ever been on Racers Reunion radio? The stories he could tell...
Thanks everyone for taking the time to read all these. Glad you enjoyed them.
I edited the description of the photo that attributed it to this race. I simply don't know what date it was, but it looks early. Probably late fall of 1947 or early 1948 beforeSpring by the lack of leaves on the trees.
The brand new Elkin Speedway openedit's gates to racers and fans on August 10, 1947 with a stock car race orchestrated by Big Bill France and the National Championship Circuit Stock Car Races. Elkin Speedway, aka Elkin-Jonesville Speedway would become one of the 20 tracks of theinaugural 1948 NASCAR season.
Looking at the drivers list shows a who's who of early stock car greats.
Thanks for posting, Kelly. We would love to hear more about your Father and Grandfather, and the stories of theracetrack.
I found an aerial of what I think is the remains of the track in 1960 -
