History
Southside Speedway, which used to be known as Royall Speedway and Wack-A-Mole Speedway in the early 1950s, first opened on April 15, 1959 with Modifieds as the feature division. For a few years, it was used as a part of NASCAR's early circuit. The first NASCAR race on Southside speedway happened on August 18, 1961. At that time, the track was a 1/4 mile dirt oval. At 58.86 mph, Junior Johnson took the pole for the 150-lap race in his 1960 Pontiac. He led every lap of the race that took about 45 minutes to race. By the next year, Southside Speedway had become a 1/3 mile asphalt oval. At 71.145 mph, Rex White took the pole, but would duck out on lap 134 with engine trouble, which would lead Jimmy Pardue to win the 200-lap feature in his 1962 Pontiac. Richard Petty would finish third in that race. Later that season, Rex White's bad luck would continue. After leading 276 laps of a 300 lap feature, he would lose his lead to Cliff Stewart, who would win the event in his 1962 Pontiac. The last main circuit race recorded at Southside Speedway was on May 19, 1963, in which Ned Jarrett would lead the most laps and win the 300-lap feature in his 1963 Ford. Since this time, Southside Speedway has been used to house several NASCAR syndicated feature series, in which the track has seen great names such as Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison turn left at the 1/3 mile track.
Throughout the track's history, there has often been one or two single divisions that brought the fans to the track, and several other novelty divisions that have been used by drivers as a stepping stone to the more prominent divisions. Usually, the more prominent division has been any variety of late model cars or modifieds, and its immediate predecessor division has been the Grand Stock class, or something similar, such as Pure Stocks.
During the 1970s, three names emerged that would plant the seed for future generations of competition at Southside Speedway. Ray Hendrick, Cal Johnson and Ted Hairfield were older drivers whose sons and grandsons have become competitive forces throughout the decades.
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