Curtis Turner hauled his first load of moonshine at nine years old. The skills he learned outrunning the law on Virginia back roads made him one of NASCAR’s first stars, and the money he made in lumber gave him the idea, in the spring of 1959, of building a track of his own.
He was not the only one. Bruton Smith, a car dealer from Oakboro who promoted short track races at the Concord fairgrounds, had plans for a superspeedway near Pineville. The two men found out about each other, made contact and struck a deal. The result was Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the track they built together nearly ruined both of them.
It started as a race against Indianapolis
Turner had visited the new Daytona International Speedway in early 1959 and come home wanting one, according to the circuit history at Racing Circuits. He had land in Concord, about ten miles north of Charlotte, and reckoned on borrowing around $700,000 for a mile and a half oval with 24 degree banking. Smith brought the promoter’s instincts and the Charlotte connections.
Together they negotiated with NASCAR for a 600 mile race on Memorial Day weekend, longer than the Indianapolis 500 by a hundred miles and scheduled against it. Construction began in 1959 with the race set for the following June, and the build cost a million dollars, according to the Museum of the New South. The first World 600 ran on June 19, 1960, and the track has hosted it, now called the Coca-Cola 600, every year since.
Then it went broke. In 1961 the speedway entered Chapter 11 reorganization, like many superspeedways of the era, and lagging ticket sales did not help. Smith left in 1962 to pursue business in Texas and Illinois. Turner, who died in 1970, never got the track back.
The man who came back
Smith spent the next decade selling cars. Working inside Ford’s dealership program, he became very successful and began quietly buying shares in the speedway he had lost, according to the track’s own history. By 1975 he was the majority stockholder again and back in control of the day to day operations.
His first move was to hire H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler as general manager, and the two of them spent the next thirty years turning a bankrupt oval into the home of NASCAR. Grandstands, luxury suites, modern concessions and restrooms came first. A permanent lighting system made night racing possible. Smith Tower, a seven story, 135,000 square foot building attached to the grandstands, opened in 1988. Trackside condominiums, a first anywhere, arrived in 1984.
Wheeler told the Charlotte Observer in 1982 that Smith had turned stock car racing into a professional business, forcing drivers to take publicity photographs in suits and ties. Smith was also, by Wheeler’s account, willing to fight a driver over a disagreement. He went on to build Speedway Motorsports into a chain of tracks and Sonic Automotive into one of the largest dealer groups in the country, and he is in the NASCAR Hall of Fame alongside Turner.
What is there now
The speedway covers roughly 2,000 acres on Concord Parkway. The mile and a half quad oval is joined by a 2.28 mile road course, the Roval, that hosts its own NASCAR round, a quarter mile oval inside the main track, a karting layout, the zMAX Dragway and a dirt track. The complex hosts around 380 events a year, according to Racing Circuits, which makes it one of the busiest sporting venues in the world.
The track was renamed Lowe’s Motor Speedway in 1998 and reverted to its original name in 2009. It was repaved in 2006. Beyond racing, it hosts Speedway Christmas, a four mile drive through light show from November into January, auto fairs, food festivals and a steady calendar of events that have nothing to do with going fast.
Turner’s own story deserves its paragraph. A Virginian who hauled liquor as a child and made his fortune in lumber, he became one of the first drivers on the NASCAR circuit after the sanctioning body formed in 1949, and his driving was shaped by the same skills that kept him ahead of federal agents. He was, by the Museum of the New South’s account, exactly what early stock car racing was: a bootlegger who turned a criminal skill into a sport. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame alongside Smith, and a 1959 stock certificate bearing his signature as company president still trades among collectors.
The track’s difficulties did not end with the bankruptcy. The 1960 race was delayed by construction problems, and ticket sales lagged for years. What turned it was the partnership Smith formed with Wheeler after 1975, a promoter’s showman paired with a businessman who would not let go. Between them they built the grandstands, the suites, the lights and the tower, and the annual calendar of events that now runs to nearly 400.
Why it matters
The first NASCAR Strictly Stock race, the beginning of the modern series, was run in 1949 at an older Charlotte track that I-85 was later built over. The sport’s roots are in this county, and the speedway in Concord is where they were made permanent, by a moonshiner who wanted his own Daytona and a car dealer who refused to stay bankrupt.
The stock car industry contributes billions a year to North Carolina’s economy, and most of the teams are within an hour of this track. It is where the world met Lightning McQueen, where the World 600 has run for 66 years, and where Bruton Smith proved that losing a speedway is not the same as giving it up.