South Boston Speedway or "SoBo" is a short track located just outside South Boston, Virginia, U.S.A.. SoBo is located approximately sixty miles east of another area familiar to most NASCAR fans, Martinsville. It is owned by Mattco, Inc, the Mattioli family trust that owns Pocono Raceway, with second-generation member Joe Mattioli III operating the track. NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series has not raced at the track since 1971; however, NASCAR's BUSCH Series (now Nationwide Series) raced here into the new millennium. After the NASCAR Busch Series left the schedule, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competed at SoBo for a couple years. The NASCAR Camping World East Series now hold events here and SoBo continues to play a part in the NASCAR family, hosting Whelen All-American Series late model and USAR Hooter's Pro Cup events. Some of the better known graduates of South Boston's Saturday night weekly events include Jeff Burton, Ward Burton, Elliott Sadler, Stacy Compton, and the Bodine brothers (Todd, Geoff and Brett). Danville, Virginia driver Wendell Scott, the first African-American driver to compete at NASCAR's highest level, also raced in Modified Division events here.
Famous quotes containing the words south, boston and/or speedway:
“Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.”
—Philip Guedalla (1889–1944)
“Let those talk of poverty and hard times who will in the towns and cities; cannot the emigrant who can pay his fare to New York or Boston pay five dollars more to get here ... and be as rich as he pleases, where land virtually costs nothing, and houses only the labor of building, and he may begin life as Adam did? If he will still remember the distinction of poor and rich, let him bespeak him a narrower house forthwith.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The improved American highway system ... isolated the American-in-transit. On his speedway ... he had no contact with the towns which he by-passed. If he stopped for food or gas, he was served no local fare or local fuel, but had one of Howard Johnson’s nationally branded ice cream flavors, and so many gallons of Exxon. This vast ocean of superhighways was nearly as free of culture as the sea traversed by the Mayflower Pilgrims.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)