Summerville Speedway
Local and Regional Short Track Racing
I think the original owner was named HIll. I think he ownded the track until the early dseventies when Charlie bought it from him.
Some interesting facts:
Tiny Lund won his last race the Wednesday night before he was killed in Talledega. It was called the TriState 200 then. Charlie rename it the Tiny Lund Memorial the following year.
When the Southern 500 in Darlington came to town, Charlie regularly had Winston Cup drivers in for fun races using local cars. It was a great chance to meet Cup drivers up close.
In the mid seventies, in a protest of allowing the first tube chassis car to race at Summerville, Billy Manor, refused to race the feature against what he termed "an illegal supermodified". Soon after, he formed a drivers union and reopened the old Charleston Speedway. It never drew fans and soon closed. (Just for history sake, Frank Graham, coming from the back of the field, outran the car BIlly so despised) 2 years later, Billy was among the horde of drivers runing tube cars.
Arguably the best driver to turn laps on the red clay was Al Bailey. He drove all levels of cars at the track, but was particulary known for two, the red #16 Cougar owned by Nathan Leggett, and the yellow Barry Wright #16 owned by H.M Grooms. Al was just about unbeatable in both.
During it's heyday, Summervile ran three classes with full fields: Hobby, Limited Sportsman, and Late Model.
Some drivers of note: Connelly Bryant(sp), Billy Manor, Jimmy Manor, Frank Graham, Charlie Powell, Mutt Powell, Jack Dunbar, Billy Judd, Hop Holmes, Bubba Into, Arnold Hutto, Reggie Strickland, Frank Mizzel, Barry Lewis, Marion Cox, Raymond Cox Al Bailey, Michael Leggett, J.B Burbage, Gary Martin, Robert Powell, Charles Powell III, Robert Elliott, David Into....
I see David Elrod has commented. His dad flagged the track forever before Jack Fulton took over. He has as much info available as anyone...
Hope this helps....