Introduction and Early History

this has to be one of the single coolest motorsports venues in america there's so much character in every single little piece of this place that you can't even describe there's gonna be a farmer's market you're the closest thing to these walls talking people start throwing bottles at the sheriffs now that's an old plug right there that ladder i used to climb the ladder huh you might know where i'm standing but it might look a little different because we're here in the middle of the day the people's track history of the people's track with none other than the man ronnie barnes who now works here but has been coming here since the 80s he knows all kinds of stuff about this place more than anybody else probably could tell you we're in for some good stories and some awesome old school pictures that he has from his own like personal library it's going to be fun are those divots just from years of burnouts in the same spot that's right that's right that's crazy i mean this whole place is when was this track founded like when did it start 1955 1955. i've heard can't confirm it this was a dirt road at one time and they raced on a dirt road and then of course it got paved when was the first time you came here 1981 1981 started drag racing motorcycles 1977 and then showed up here one night in 1981 81 they had a cable from right here to right here and they had two street lights mounted right here red yellow green activated in the tree in the tower the tower was lower and closer this way that's moved but you activated it there i was announced around here for three or four or five years there was no beam in 1981 just a groove across the starter line there and the the starter would line the cars up uh put one guy in that groove one guy in that groove he'd point like that to the lights and the street lights would come on red yellow green they would take off and we did have we did have a finish line we we did have times but the time started when you hit the button it didn't start when the car moved so it wasn't like a real time it was the when the button you got there is that the cable that the lights used to be on no i don't i don't know because the street lights probably hung to about right here did hunt lower i don't know where those went i don't know if somebody kept them or threw them away or what they did when did this conquer get put here that would have been in the 90s the 60 foot is concrete and then the rest is asphalt but in 81 it was all asphalt uh one of…