There was a time when Raleigh was in position to be to stock car racing what Charlotte has become. It was decades ago - so many miles back that NASCAR was on training wheels and the fastest car around was a black Hudson Hornet with hand-painted numbers in white liquid shoe polish on at least one door and sometimes two.

The year was 1952, and there were only two modern paved race tracks in the South.





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One was in Darlington, S.C. The other was located just inside what was then Raleigh's northern-most city limits. The Raleigh track - technically named the Raleigh Southland Speedway but almost instantly nicknamed Dixie Speedway by fans - was exactly a mile long, with matching 1,850-foot front and back straightaways and 16-degree banked turns. There was also a quarter-mile track on the infield that became a popular test for local sportsman events. Unlike the similar oval in Darlington, the Raleigh track was completely lighted and the first long track sanctioned by NASCAR to hold night races. When Fonty Flock drove a Hudson to a win in the Memorial Day 300 in 1953 at an average of almost 71 miles per hour, the averaging winning speed on most stock car tracks was in the 60 mph range.

Source: Noise ordinance cost Raleigh NASCAR - Good thing for Charlotte

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