Is this closed historic SC race track gone for good? Here’s the latest on work to save it
Jackie Manly has completed all the paperwork NASCAR required to reopen Greenville Pickens Speedway.
He’s sold t-shirts emblazoned with “Save out Speedway,” obtained promises from sponsors and recently was the official Save Our Speedway: The Legendary Greenville-Pickens Speedway pace truck at Anderson Motor Speedway.
Yet, he has not raised enough money — $100,000 — to open the gates.
The deadlines have come and gone — now it’s middle of May — but Manly and the others working so hard to save racing at the historic track are not giving up.
“We still working on it,” Manly said.
Recently on Facebook he posted a photo of airborne race cars with the message, “This is us right about now - help us land this thing and Save Our Speedway: The Legendary Greenville Pickens Speedway!”
He said over 100 drivers have committed to race on opening night.
In early May he said they needed about $40,000.
The gofundme page has raised just shy of $8,200. The largest donor — $1,000 — chose to be anonymous.
Manley is a racer whose family members have been involved with the track since it opened 83 years ago.
Track owner Kevin Whitaker, a Greenville car dealer, agreed to lease the track to Manly for $100,000 for the season. The entire 300 acres owned by Whitaker, including the track and surrounding acreage, has been under contract with the commercial real estate firm that wants to build an industrial park.
Greenville Pickens Speedway opened in 1940 as a half-mile-long dirt track. It closed the next year due to World War II and reopened in 1946, Independence Day, offering fans two horse races and a car race promoted by Bill France Sr., who two years later founded NASCAR.
The Blackwell family bought the track in 1955, the same year NASCAR began sanctioning races there. The track, later paved, hosted various Winston Cup races through the years. Family member Mark Blackwell is working with Manley to raise money for the track to open this season.
After nearly 50 years, the Blackwells sold the property to Whitaker, a long-time sponsor.
Whitaker has been unavailable for comment on the track’s past, present or future.
Manley, who owns J&J Gutter, raced late model cars at Greenville Pickens from 2008 until 2015, when he started running his #28 Ford Fusion at other tracks around the region. He still does.
But his ties to Greenville Pickens brought him home.
If he can raise the money, he said he’ll open the concession stands — they were not open last season and races were not weekly. Chicken strips, hamburgers and that all-time Greenville-Pickens delicacy — fried bologna sandwiches (mustard may be added) — will be back.
