Closed historic SC racetrack could soon reopen. Here’s when and the man working to make it happen
Jackie Manley was 3 days old the first time he went to Greenville-Pickens Speedway.
In fact, his dad, Wayne, went straight to the track after picking up his wife and son from the maternity ward.
Their lives have been entwined with the historic racetrack ever since, as workers and as racers.
Jackie Manley could not bear to see it go.
He has negotiated a $100,000 lease with track owner Kevin Whitaker, a Greenville car dealer, and plans to open for the season on April 15.
The future of the 83-year-old track — the second oldest in short track history — has been uncertain since the previous operator elected not to renew the lease. And, more recently, a Greenville real estate company has listed the entire 300-acre property for sale as an industrial park. The broker told WYYF his company, RealtyLink, hopes to buy it.
Drivers and fans have spent the off season lamenting what they consider the track’s downfall even as they reminisce about the heyday of racing, when the Blackwell family owned it and the grandstand was packed.
Manley said he can close his eyes and still see the spectacle of race day, when it was so busy people came early in the morning to park their cars, went home and returned that evening. If you waited, you’d have to park in the hinterlands.
Greenville Pickens Speedway opened in 1940 as a half-mile-long dirt track. It closed the next year during World War II and reopened in 1946, Independence Day, offering fans two horse races and a car race promoted by Bill France Sr., known as Big Bill, 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.
After nearly 50 years, the Blackwells sold the property to Whitaker, a long-time sponsor.
Whitaker has not been available for comment on the track’s past, present or future.
Manley said he now has a month to raise the money to pay the lease. In the past few days he’s signed several sponsorships, amounting to almost half of what he needs.
He said a few days ago he was cautiously optimistic about races by April 15. Now he’s certain he and the racing community can pull it off. He’s also started a gofundme page to raise money from individuals. Since Sunday, $1,880 has been raised from 21 people.
Manley’s mother, Debby, sold tickets and worked other jobs, while his dad drove the clean up trucks and weighed cars. Racing is simply a way of life for racers and fans alike.
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.
He hopes to offer an experience akin to the days of the Blackwells with grandstands full of families, kids running around, the sounds of the engines and the excitement of competition.
He said he’ll have all the concession stands open — 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.
He has four weeks.
“I’m feeling a lot of pressure,” he said.
But it will be a family affair with help from his parents, wife, brother (also a driver), sister and now 4-year-old son Jaxx, who seems to love the racing world even more than his dad. Jaxx is getting ready to race his go-kart.
Tasha Porter Kummer, the first woman to win a Late Model race — the prime event — at Greenville Pickens, said, “I feel confident that Greenville Pickens can be what it once was and I feel like it can still go on for many years with a new buyer and the industrial speedway park they are trying to build.”
Her family has been associated with the speedway for 40 years. Her brother races, along with other family members.
“My family and I fully support it,” she said.
She said she thinks the speedway will only benefit the industrial park and enhance the economy of Easley and Pickens County.
‘I think if the new buyer is willing to continue the lease of just the track park it will be a great thing and what that place has needed for a long time,” she said.
Manley feels certain the fans will return this season.
He points to the raceway’s firsts and believes. The first motorsport race aired on national TV, start to finish, broadcast from Greenville Pickens Speedway in 1971. Jim McKay announced on ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, David Pearson raced there, long before their names were known.
Week after week. Upstarts and regulars, drivers who became legends. The winners’ names remain on the grandstand wall.
The community is not ready to let that track go.
This story was originally published March 15, 2023 at 8:27 AM with the headline "Closed historic SC racetrack could soon reopen. Here’s when and the man working to make it happen."