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NASCAR Speedway Abandoned for 55 Years Is Now a Ghost Track Hidden in the Woods

When NASCAR was founded in 1948, there was a requirement that any car entered must be made entirely of parts available to the general public through automobile dealers. This rule began to change about a decade later, but it's not the only thing that NASCAR left behind since then. Oval tracks were also reshaped.
abandoned Occoneechee NASCAR track 10 photos
Photo: Dark Exploration Films/YouTube
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NASCAR started with dirt tracks that rarely exceeded one mile (1.6 km). As the series became more popular and the cars got faster, NASCAR moved to longer and paved ovals. Tracks like Charlotte, Daytona, Indianapolis, and Talladega are 1.5 to more than 2.5 miles (2.4 to four km) long. So what happened to the old dirt ovals once NASCAR was done with them? Well, sadly enough, most of them were repurposed and disappeared altogether.

But here's one that survived even though it's been abandoned for decades. Meet Occoneechee Speedway, one of the first two NASCAR tracks that were opened for the inaugural 1949 season. Located in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and known as Orange Speedway in its final years, the track was built on a farm that also included a half-mile (0.8-km) horse racing course.

The story goes that Bill France notice the horse track while flying above the farm and bought the land before he established the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) in 1948. In late 1947, France built a 0.9-mile (1.4-km) track over the old horse racing course. Occoneechee Speedway was included in the inaugural 1949 NASCAR season and remained on the calendar until 1968.

Dominated by the Flock brothers in its earliest days, the track also hosted NASCAR legends like Lee Petty, Fireball Roberts, Junior Johnson, Herb Thomas, and Richard Petty. It's also the track that saw Louise Smith become NASCAR's first female driver.

Bill France abandoned the track in late 1968, mainly due to local opposition to its Sunday racing schedule. It was replaced by the more iconic Talladega Superspeedway, which opened a year later in Alabama and took Occoneechee's date in the seasonal calendar.

But unlike most dirt tracks that were decommissioned, Occoneechee wasn't landscaped into something else. Although it became a park, it wasn't messed with and it still displays some of the buildings and ads that were left behind. And as this video by "Dark Exploration Films" shows, the abandoned oval is still home to a couple of old stock cars.

One is a pre-WWII five-door coupe in an advanced state of decay. The vehicle appears to be a 1940 Chevrolet and what's left of the racing livery suggests it was driven by Herbert Cates. The other one is a 1950s Mopar. It's also in really bad shape, but check out the modified front fascia with several holes in the upper nose. I guess that's how they enhanced cooling back in the day.

The footage also shows how crude these early NASCAR tracks were, from the unpaved course to the very basic concrete stands with no seats. Of course, most of the track is gone due to the trees that have grown here in a half-century, so it's pretty much hidden by a small forest.

A results list placed at the entrance provides info as to who scored wins at Occoneechee Speedway. And it includes a few big names and legendary cars, including the Hudson Hornet, the Oldsmobile "Rocket" 88, the Chrysler 300 "letter series," and the Chevrolet Tri-Five.

You can also notice how the average speed increased from less than 80 mph (129 kph) in the early 1950s to 90 mph (145 kph) toward the late 1960s. Or how attendance dropped from more than 11,000 spectators in the early years to fewer than 7,000 in the mid-1960s.

Needless to say, it's an interesting place to explore since it's the only surviving track from the early days of NASCAR. But it definitely needs a bit of maintenance and to be highlighted as one of the series' crown jewels, because that's what it was for at least a decade. But until that happens, take a virtual walk through what used to be Occoneechee Speedway by hitting the play button below.

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About the author: Ciprian Florea
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Ask Ciprian about cars and he'll reveal an obsession with classics and an annoyance with modern design cues. Read his articles and you'll understand why his ideal SUV is the 1969 Chevrolet K5 Blazer.
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