The Southern Short Track Racing Icon

While Bowman Gray kicks off the 2025 NASCAR season today with its slate of preliminary races, we take a look at a track nearby waiting for its own season to kick off: the Caraway Speedway.

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reminds me of a scaled-down New Hampshire, from the looks of it

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Overview and History

Smack dab in the middle of North Carolina southwest of Randleman, the Caraway Speedway has been a home for weekly racing for more than half a century. Opening in 1966 as a dirt track, the land was originally the ballfields for the Piedmont Baseball Camp, where the rich folk sent their kids in hopes of churning out the next Babe Ruth or Ted Williams. Before the automobiles frequented the land, it was horses that made up the racing scene here; after 6 years, the 0.455 mile oval was paved in 1972 and subsequently became part of the NASCAR weekly racing scene. 

modifieds are quite prominent here

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The track quickly found itself on the NASCAR Late Model Sportsman calendar that year. In 1977, Russell Hackett took over ownership and operation of the speedway, doing so for more than 30 years. 5 years later, the NASCAR Busch Series put Caraway on its inaugural schedule in 1982 as the 8th race on the schedule. Dale Earnhardt won the race that Friday, a race featuring only 21 entrants and 13 finishers. The series came back to Caraway 3 months later 3 days after Independence Day, Jack Ingram taking victory leading the final 12 laps of 200 passing polesitter Sam Ard who’d led the first 188 laps only to come second-best.

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The Busch Series came back in 1983, but never returned afterward as the series gradually expanded beyond the confines of the southeast in the years to follow. The Southeast Tour began running at Caraway in 1996, lasting for a decade until 2005. That same year, the Whelen Southern Modified Tour started to prominently feature Caraway in its schedule from 2005 until the series’ demise in 2016, with 60 races run in total across 12 seasons. In 2010, the elder Hackett passed on ownership to his son Darren, who continues to run the speedway into the present day.

late models make up quite a bit of the schedule nowadays

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Did You Know?

- Saturday night races at Caraway usually start at 7 PM in the hopes of fans being able to talk to drivers after the race and still get home at a reasonable time after the night’s activities.

- George Brunnhoelzl II holds the track record at Caraway, 15.648 seconds in a Southern Modified Tour car with an average speed of 104.678 MPH.

- It’s said that Dale Earnhardt honed his rough driving style from racing at Caraway and other tracks of the sort, according to the locals and the elder Hackett.

- Earnhardt, Sam Ard, Jimmy Hensley, Mike Skinner, Dennis Setzer, Bobby and Justin Labonte are among the names honored as part of the speedway’s 50th anniversary celebration in its top 50 drivers list.

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Caraway is set to welcome the CARS Tour back in early July, along with a full slate of weekly racing for the 2025 season.

perfect lead-in for the Chicago Street Course weekend, albeit a thousand miles or so away

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On the next episode of 2025 Daytona 500 Countdown...

Bowman Gray's firmly in the spotlight this weekend, this next track will be making its long-awaited return to NASCAR competition this Easter season...