Once Famous Racetrack Still Holds Relics in the Woods

Occoneechee racetrack in North Carolina, one of the first Nascar tracks, was abandoned and forgotten for decades.

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[reynardgreenewood]

NICE WORK !!! I watched My first Stock Car Race there in 1962 when I was 7 years old. Lee Petty was walking with a cane due to injuries from 1960 wreck, but still climbed in Richard's car to check suspension set-up. Was there about 4 years later and saw James Hilton go over the bank in turn #2 and shake some saplings on the river bank before jumping back over the bank in turn#3. Orange High School Marching Band and Stanford Jr. High Band practiced there until mid 1970's so as not to disturb housing development across from schools [ My younger brother was in the Stanford Band] .. Football was played at the track until a new field was built about 1972. My Dad raced cars in California in the 1930's and as children we were at the local dirt track almost every Saturday night near Rougemont, NC about 15 miles north of Hillsborough. It was called Tri-Co [sort for Tri - County ] Love your strange content !!! An Old Tarheel .

[johniwan]

2:14 Is a 1940 Chevy Coupe Super Deluxe, driven by local driver Herbert Cates #44

[jamesholt]

I'm a huge history nerd. Awesome video Chris. We gotta keep history alive.

[ScareBear]

This place is like a time capsule. All the history and the cars that are still there. So cool seeing the old signs too. Great video!

[Onesixthdesign]

Hey Chris!! Thank you so much for sharing this video, my grandfather, Frank Hayworth was a NASCAR car owner. His driver, Jim Paschal drove that track in May and Oct of 1957. Wonderful video, as always!!

[bigseatchris]

Probably one of my favorite videos of yours to date. I’ve built essentially my entire life around racing and the racing industry, and I can speak for a lot of people that places like these are what inspire and influence our passions. I can’t even begin to imagine the stories that those cars could tell, the battles that they were in, the blood sweat and tears that went into building them.

[AwsomMerc]

#44 is a 1940 Chevy Super Deluxe and #72 is a 1956 Dodge Coronet. 👊😎👍

[dwade]

Wow! So much history. I can only imagine how much moonshine was drank there.😂

[robbchastain]

It is incredible that once-popular entertainment venues can be overrun by trees and vegetation while nobody is looking. Great to see that locals cleaned it up and made it something to recall fond memories again. And I recall the excitement of being a kid taken to a racetrack for the first time, for me I was eight in '68 and it was a NASCAR race in Riverside, California.

[SethLewin]

Hey I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to mention the original people who lived on that land. We need more of that sort of thing.

[arthur_stephens]

I visited there a couple years ago. I liked the historical footage you showed and the aerial views over time.

[MarksArk]

This was back when the cars in stock car racing were actually stock.

[robnelson]

The track was called orange speedway because it was located in orange country North Carolina.

[LenInMI]

This was a great nostalgic video. TY!

[hetzlerracing]

The now defunct Historic Speedway Group are the ones who cleaned up the track. They cleaned up the grandstands and removed a lot of trees that had started growing there, they rebuilt the flag stand, they rebuilt all the buildings you see today, they brought the old cars in, they cleaned up the infield, they rebuilt the upper fence (and there is even some old roof top tin from our property used in that fence.) When the group got together and started the project, you could barely tell there was a track there, and the stands were incredibly over grown. The track was abandoned by NASCAR because the town didn't like it being there, and they refused to allow it to be expanded and paved. Prior to 1968, the town had already started implementing laws making it harder for the track to function, so when the town said no to improvements, NASCAR took their money and left. And to think, even as recently as the early 2000s, the town and hiway dept wanted to bulldoze this entire thing and put a bypass thru it. There are still people in town who would do that if they could get their way.

[clarsach]

Thanks for this video. Most of us Brits aren't all that familiar with NASCAR and its prominence in US culture (especially in the south) so this video was really educational for me....interesting to see how NASCAR's popularity grew so quickly and quickly outgrew small regional tracks like this one.

[BradGryphonn]

I really like seeing these places where nature has retaken the land, yet a few man made relics can still be found.
I used to explore abandoned places many moons ago, so your videos trigger reminiscicenses (?) for me.

[justbrowsing]

Awesome vid Chris.
The first outhouse looks like a fairly recent renovation before it was trashed.
Sad when people just destroy historical places.

[WilliamCarr-tnqp]

That's a great place to metal detect .
I bet it's got a hoarde of coins

[MycontentisgoldJerryGold]

I visited the track several years ago. It was a day when they held a car show at the adjacent industrial park, then an exhibition race on the old track. I loved seeing dozens of restored cars driving around in front of a thousand-plus people watching from the old stands. I've also been to the remnants of the Raleigh Speedway. All that was left was a small stretch of debris-covered asphalt in a patch of woods. And of course, the NC State Fairgrounds was a NASCAR track, too.