Qualla: Charlotte Motor Speedway

Charlotte Motor Speedway: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zach Catanzareti Photo, CC BY 2.0. On the morning of June 19, 1960, contractor W. Owen Flowe parked his earthmovers across the unfinished racing surface of the new Charlotte Motor Speedway and threatened to sue. He hadn't been paid, his checks had bounced, and the World 600 was in ten days. According to Flowe, someone showed up with a shotgun. Co-owner Bruton Smith said only his partner Curtis Turner had brought the weapon, and that a guard quickly took it away. Either way, the bulldozers moved, the asphalt was rushed into place, and the inaugural race ran. Drivers spent the afternoon dodging gravel-deep potholes that the Charlotte Observer's George Cunningham compared to 'an old lady's wrinkled face.' Smith later called it a miracle the track was finished at all.

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Image: Zach Catanzareti Photo | CC BY 2.0

Charlotte Motor Speedway: Smith and Turner, Reluctant Partners

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Stock car racing in the late 1950s was outgrowing the dirt bullrings that had birthed it. Promoter Bruton Smith, a Carolinas-based showman with a knack for selling tickets, wanted his own state-of-the-art facility. So did Curtis Turner, a Virginia timber magnate and one of NASCAR...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Charlotte Motor Speedway: Bankruptcy and a Federal Judge

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Moss from Tonawanda, New York, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Within months of the opening, lawsuits began stacking up. Connecticut General Life Insurance was owed ninety thousand dollars. The Internal Revenue Service wanted forty thousand. McDevitt Street and Company, the prime contractor, claimed two hundred thousand. By November 1961 the...

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Image: Adam Moss from Tonawanda, New York, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Charlotte Motor Speedway: Howard, Smith, and Humpy

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sicnag, CC BY 2.0. Furniture-store owner Richard Howard ran CMS through the late 1960s and early 1970s with a tight grip on costs. The track turned its first profit in February 1964 and paid off its mortgage three years ahead of schedule. But Smith, back in business after a tax-evasion conviction, ...

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Image: Sicnag | CC BY 2.0

Charlotte Motor Speedway: The Crown Jewel and the Roval

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Moss from Tonawanda, New York, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Two NASCAR weekends now anchor the speedway's calendar. The Coca-Cola 600, first run as the World 600 in 1960, takes six hundred miles to finish, the longest race on the NASCAR schedule. It runs on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and is recognized as a Crown Jewel event alongs...

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Image: Adam Moss from Tonawanda, New York, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Charlotte Motor Speedway: Tragedy and Reinvention

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit tequilamike, CC BY 2.0. The track's spectator capacity, peaking at 170,000 in the 1980s, has been pared back since the early 2010s. The 1999 VisionAire 500K, an Indy Racing League event, ended in tragedy when a crash sent heavy debris into the grandstands and killed three spectators. A pedestrian bridge...

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Image: tequilamike | CC BY 2.0