Greenville racetrack development rejected. Here’s where plans for closed SC site stands now

Once again, the Greenville Pickens Speedway has been saved from the wrecking ball.

The Pickens County Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny an application to build on three tracts around the speedway, including the speedway itself, saying traffic studies submitted by the developer were inadequate.

Commissioners said they wanted a 2-mile and 20-year traffic study. The developer now has to wait two months if he wants to reapply.

The commission tabled the application in February to give the developer time to submit a traffic study.

Speedway supporters packed the chamber but were not allowed to speak since the commission was acting on a tabled item.

One group working to save the track, the Real Historic Greenville Pickens Speedway, said on Facebook, “The fight to save the Real Historic Greenville Pickens Speedway lives to see another day.”

“We are going to do everything we can to get this track made HISTORIC and possibly an investor to contribute the last amount needed to save this racetrack,” the group said. “An offer is on the table. There are things in the contract that the developers will have to change in order to make this contract work.”

SC Speedway Hwy 124 has built warehouses and manufacturing facilities beside the track site, but the actual track has been left alone.

The application turned down Monday night was for the track itself, which would be the site of a 376,380 square-foot industrial building, an undeveloped outparcel for other industrial buildings and a 13-acre retail, gas station restaurant complex south of the speedway.

At the last Planning Commission meeting more than a dozen people spoke against the plan, describing the history of the racetrack and what it has meant to them and generations of their families.

Greenville Pickens Speedway opened in 1940 as a half-mile-long dirt track. It went dark during World War II and when racing resumed on Independence Day, fans saw two horse races and a car race promoted by Bill France, who two years later founded NASCAR.

The track was paved in 1970 and hosted various Winston Cup races through the years.

Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt and his son Dale Jr. raced there. Many of the legendary racers’ names remain painted on the walls surrounding the track.

Several people suggested the speedway could be profitable, but Phil Wilson of RealtyLink, which is representing the developer, said at the last meeting it wasn’t at the end and couldn’t be again.

He estimated it would take $20 million to refurbish the track.

“Everybody would like to see the track,” he said. “Nobody wants to pay for it.”