It was on Ivan Drive, a Fayetteville address. Here is a modern aerial of the location with the coordinates in the lower right. You can still see the small lake that was in the infield of the oval track -
Now I'm confused. I found another larger oval track with a road course next to it about 2 miles north on hwy 301. I think those are the tracks you are looking for. So now we have three tracks.
This aerial is from January 10, 1959 -
Here is a close-up of the big oval with road course to the left -
So, what are the identities of these three tracks?
I think I found it after looking at Bobby Williamson's efforts over on Local Race Chat. I was on Hwy 301 just west of the airport below Seven Mountain Road. It looks like there is a trucking company there now.
What do you guys think? Was this Rockfish Speedway?
Top contender for the old Cumberland Speedway of 1948. It shows what looks like some remnants of a grandstand and wear from motor racing. Anyone know if this is the old track?
1951 aerial
1950 aerial show the track in the bottom right
Is this the old track?
Uh oh, you're right. I looked it up in the book "America's Speedways" and the 1948 Cumberland Speedway supposed to be 1/2 mile. Using the scale of the baseball field, the track above looks like a 1/4 mile. 1/3 mile at best. Unless America'a Speedways is wrong about the length, this may not be the Cumberland Speedway referred to in the 1948 article above. Where was the 1/2 track?
Great job, Eric! I've looked for it before but could never find it. Now that you found it's location I was able to find a low quality aerial photo from 1950 where you can just barely see it next to the baseball field. It looks to me like it was a 1/4 mile track?
That was the most exciting part of a very dull race. I went to sleep through most of it.
I appreciate that, Dave. I'm now going to do something similar for the 1947 NCSCC season. It's already a challenge finding every track and race date, but that's part of the fun of it.
I've always had a fascination with the early years of stock car racing and love to do research on the subject when I can find the time. Not a lot of info is out there for those interested so I put together this condensed history of the inaugural 1948 NASCAR season after finding aerials of all 20 tracks. Not all of the car, driver, and action photos are exactly from 1948 since it's difficult to date these photos and 1948 photos are rare, so I got as close as I could, give or take a year or two.
Hope you enjoy it!
View here - https://imgur.com/a/zXsMj
I would say definitely a horse track. There are no signs of any motor racing anywhere, and that is probably a horse barn at the southwest corner of the track.
