Text and photos by Perry Allen Wood, 6/2007

• 1: Introduction
• 2: The Tar Heel Speedway: Randleman, N.C.
• 3: The Tar Heel Speedway: Randleman, N.C., Nov. 22, 1962
• 4: The Tar Heel Speedway: Randleman, N.C., May 5, 1963
• 5: The Tar Heel Speedway: Randleman, N.C., Oct. 5, 1963
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The Tar Heel Speedway: Randleman, N.C.

It is north of Randleman on Route 220 about four miles past Branson Mill Road where the Petty compound is located and then east on Davis Mill Road. At the sharp left-hander, go straight onto a gravel road and past a sign that reads “Frank Millikan 6223.” Beyond Frank Millikan’s house is a facility that has not heard the roar of Grand National engines in over 40 years. The rough asphalt of the entrance sprouts weeds from every seam and cracks like the speedway itself. Atop the wall on the homestretch a fence protects nobody as the stands are gone without a trace. It is magnificent in its rundown state, a perfect example of the Silent Speedways of the Carolinas.

A silent sentry stands towering in the brilliant azure sky with a menacing countenance that glares madly through wild shocks of dirty black hair from a pair of clear eyes sunken back into their white sockets. Its tentacles dare victims to come closer at the risk of permanent entanglement. Actually, it is a vine-covered light pole. The pit entrance is a sharp left-hander off Turn Four and is a small oval within the racing oval. A concrete wall runs from the crossover at the end of Turn Four all the way around to the middle of the backstretch. The track is littered with old farm implements, a dead truck and the skeletal remains of some sort of game bird in quiet repose on a tire. The spectator gate in the grandstand fence is at the start/finish line, bound shut by years of vine growth, a portal opening only for those misty night visitors. There is slight banking in the first turn conducive to hard beating and banging, with a hay shed squarely in the groove. The concrete wall is in the side of a hill of fertile Guilford County. The hay shed and another structure at the head of the weed-choked backstretch bracket Turn Two. Farm implements are scattered down the backstretch, and after another infield crossover the retaining wall changes to wood.

At its newly built best, it is doubtful a fence could hold a roaring Grand National stocker thundering along at nearly 100 miles an hour. Into Turn Three, sections of angled metal drape over the wooden railing that might slow a racecar down a little. If not, vaulting or plowing through means a steep drop of 20 or 30 feet to lush pasture, livestock and a sure ambulance ride. The weeds have almost won the war against the asphalt on this end. Sweeping off Turn Four, back past the silent sentry on the homestretch, and your tour of the quarter-mile at Frank’s house is complete.

There were some scenes filmed here in that great 1974 Hollywood epic “43—The Petty Story,” which starred The King as The King and recently departed Darren McGavin as Lee Petty. It is a fact that three times during the 1963 Grand National season, it hosted 200-lap battles that counted as much as the Daytona 500 in the points race. Here then are the stories of The Tar Heel Trilogy.