Racing Will Return to Historic Cleveland County Fairgrounds
Vintage Oval and Road Course Racing
Here are some details that I didn't have the time to write out when I posted this awesome news:
This dream-come-true was the vision of Michael "W" Smith who lives only a few minutes from the the Fairgrounds. He took me over to see the old race track a couple of years ago. The original footprint was still visible after all these years.
Following his vision W and is lovely wife, Carol, managed a RacersReunion booth at the fair this past Fall. The booth and the visits by several of our "Family of Legends" drivers was the talk of the town, stirring up renewed interest in the historic Fairgrounds Speedway. This piqued the interest of the Fair officials who requested a meeting that W, Ms. Carol, and my self attended before the Fair ended...a meeting to discuss possibilities. We suggested a full-blown RacersReunion event for 2012 during their Spring Fair event.
One of the gentlemen in the meeting asked if we could get David Pearson to come...to which I replied something like..."He'd be more likely to attend if you built us a race track to have a vintage race". They took that comment very seriously and immediately went to work getting the necessary approvals to build a race track.
W spent many long hours and late nights putting together a beautiful plan and budget for the race track and a proposed weekly racing schedule. Last Wednesday night the Fair board approved the plan and granted us the date for our RacersReunuion event...which now will be a full-blown Vintage Championship Series (VCS) event.
This is going to be 'old-school' racing...no lights...just flags and people running the show. W will have put together his team of track officials for this great event to kick off a weekly racing schedule at Historic Cleveland County Fairgrounds Speedway. W has plans for a regular schedule of weekly racing that he will reveal to us later.
Over the past few years, I've had several folks approach me with similar ideas that have not come to fruition. The thing that makes dreams come true are people. People willing to roll up their sleeves and be a part of the process. There has been no better example of this than the Columbia Speedway project. Most of those great people...all volunteers are still active to ensure Columbia Speedway continues to remain an integral part of the Cayce, SC community.
The people at the Cleveland County Fair had that same "We can do this" attitude and commitment to follow through on W's vision.
We also want to assemble an historical exhibit depicting racing at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds Speedway for this event in hopes it will become a permanent museum type of exhibit at the property.
Now, we all need to show all these folks in Shelby, NC what can happen when a group of like-minded racing history enthusiasts pull together to put on a show. The first Columbia event drew over 30,000 people. I can't wait to see how this turns out.
Many thanks to all who have and will roll up their sleeves to make this successful.