When I wrote local history articles for a newspaper a few years ago, I wrote one about the building of the Charlotte Motor Speedway and another one about the first NASCAR World 600 which was run in 1960.     

It was a big deal in my childhood when the speedway was built way out in the country, miles from Charlotte. It’s not out in the country any more, due to residential and business development encroaching from all sides. Numerous NASCAR racing teams built their offices and shops in the area.

The Charlotte Motor Speedway complex of today dwarfs the original track and grandstands. The racing industry continues to be an important component of the local economy. There will be three races held here this weekend: a 200-mile race on Friday, a 300-mile race on Saturday, and a 600-mile race on Sunday. The 600-mile race on Sunday is the longest race in the NASCAR circuit. It is a 1.5-mile oval track.

It seems a waste, when people are struggling to pay for gasoline for their cars so they can commute to work, but it is what it is… and voicing concerns about an obscene waste of fuel for a motorsport is frowned upon in these parts.

History of the property

The location of the speedway holds a lot of history. It was built on the former plantation of Col. Moses Alexander. George Washington stopped by Col Alexander’s home on May 29, 1791, for a meal during his post-Revolutionary War tour of The South.

The area is known for having a lot of boulders. It is on the edge of a 22-mile syenite or ring dike. A syenite or ring dike/dyke is a circular dike around a volcano.

I am no expert on volcanoes, but what I have pieced together is that ring dikes form when there is no longer liquid holding the volcano up. The volcano collapses. When magma squeezes up in the cracks and faults in the collapsing volcano, ring dikes form.

It is an interesting geologic formation. In my research for writing the three-part series “Our 22-Mile Ring Dike” for the newspaper, I learned that there are also ring dikes in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, as well as in Africa, Australia, Scotland, and Scandinavia.

What is left inside the ring dike is a sunken area that resembles a bowl. There are places along the edge of the ring dike here where you can see long distances – more than 20 miles, while line-of-sight is limited within the “bowl.” Our ring dike was studied by U.S. Geological geologists Harry E. LeGrand and Henry Bell III in 1966.

Back to the speedway’s construction…

I mention the boulders and the ring dike because this became quite a problem when construction of the speedway was attempted. Anyone familiar with the community could have told them they were going to run into a lot of rocks and a lot of boulders.

The frustrated contractor, W. Owen Flowe, was quoted in the news media as saying, “You could have blindfolded me and dropped me in the mountains of Buncombe County and I could have picked an easier spot to build a race track.”

As if digging into tons of rocks was not enough to slow down construction, it snowed every Wednesday in March in 1960. The 19 inches of snow and additional rainfall made for a soupy construction site.

With the first World 600 race scheduled for Memorial Day weekend in May, the construction delays created headaches for everyone involved.

With the asphalt track not poured and the concrete grandstands not completed, on May 19, it was announced that the May 29 race had been postponed until June 19, 1960.

Fast-Forward to the 1960 World 600

Portions of the asphalt track broke down during qualifying, resulting in repairs being made right up until the night before the June 19, 1960 race. Most drivers sustained broken or cracked windshields while trying to qualify for the race. At least five race cars were outfitted with sheet metal to protect oil pans and gas tanks from flying rocks.

The original grandstands were built to accommodate 32,000 spectators, with room for 8,000 more in the infield. That first World 600 saw $107,775 awarded to the winners and top drivers. The winner, Joe Lee Johnson, took home $25,640 plus $480 for leading 48 laps.

Fast-Forward to the 2026 Coca-Cola 600

The annual 600-mile race is now sponsored by Coca-Cola, so it is the Coca-Cola 600.

It is highly unlikely that the asphalt track will fail or there will be flying rocks encountered during the race.

The 600-mile race draws 100,000 to 120,000 on-site spectators now in addition to a television audience of several million. There will be fans in attendance from all over the world.

The total purse for the 2026 Coca-Cola 600 is $13,855,363. The winner will take home $200,000 to $250,000. When I looked into it, I discovered that the $25,640 won by Joe Lee Johnson in 1960 would be the equivalent of more than $256,000 today.

Want to know more?

Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 includes my articles about the Charlotte Motor Speedway and the 1960 World 600 NASCAR race, along with 89 other local history newspaper columns I wrote from 2006 through September 2009.

Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2 includes my three articles about the 22-mile ring dike in Cabarrus County, NC along with the other 81 newspaper columns I wrote from October 2009 through December 2012. Book 2 also includes my research notes on topics I did not get to write about when the newspaper suddenly ceased publication.

My books are available in paperback and e-book from Amazon and are also available in paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC.

Janet

All history is local, but no history is just local