Full Throttle

Rumors about the future of Old Dominion Speedway have been swirling for a number of months. NBC 12 Sports is reporting what many have been fearing, the sale and potential closing of one of the legendary short tracks in America.

Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas Va. has been sold.

Track manager Haynes Dominick says the track was sold in the winter following pressure from developers and community members who complained about the noise. Dominick says the track will operate for at least one more season. It averages about 15-hundred racing enthusiasts every Saturday night.

It’s not known who bought the track or for how much.

In addition to the tracks storied history as a stock car venue it’s drag strip is the oldest on the east coast. The current owners, or were, Steve Britt and Charles Graybeal who bought the track in 2003.

The tracks history starts with it’s purchase by Al Gore, no not that Al Gore, in 1952. The list of drivers who have raced at the speedway is like a who’s who of auto racing; Richard (2 of Petty’s official 200 wins are at Old Dominion) and Lee Petty, David Pearson, Curtis Turner, Bobby Allison, Joe Weatherly, the late Neil Bonnett, Darrell Waltrip, Michael Waltrip, Morgan Shephard, Ned Jarrett, the late Elmo Langley, Junior Johnson, and the late Tiny Lund.

Lund raced at the speedway the night before he was tragically killed at Talladega Superspeedway in 1975. “I can remember Tiny leaving the track with a big jug of my mom’s chili under each arm,” recalls Dick Gore, then promoter of the speedway.

Matt Stanmyre has an interesting article on the tracks future in the Potomac News that includes a very long string of readers comments on the track. The Potomac News Blog also has a couple good entries and shots of current DEI driver Mark McFarland