Originally published May 2010

Thirty years ago Atlanta Dragway was a different facility than the one which has played host to the

As evidenced from this David McGee photo, and yes that's Shirley Muldowney, fans were up close and personal with the action. In 1981 [below], the NHRA staged their first event and there hadn't been many changes to the facility.

NHRA Southern Nationals for the past thirty years. It was a lot different.

The facility, built in 1975 under the guidance of Georgia-based farmer Gene Bennett in the woods of Commerce, Ga., was what some of today icons in drag racing history believed was a track on the cutting edge for the era.

Kenny Bernstein, now one of the more heralded team owners on the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series and a past multi-time world champion scored one of his first career national events at the famed facility during the 1979 IHRA Dixie Nationals.

“The first time I ever came here I felt the place was a diamond in the rough,” said Bernstein, who added four NHRA victories to his 1979 win. “The track was actually nice for what it was. I always remembered that we did really well here.”

There were two factors in every trip to Atlanta Dragway under a common name – atmosphere. The atmosphere in the spring event was always hot and humid, and the other “atmosphere” was a southern version of their IHRA partner tracks in Bristol [TN] and Rockingham [NC] where the fans could be a little on the rambunctious side.

Well there were those who point out the little side of rambunctious didn’t even come close to describing the clientele.

“It was wild,” said Kurt Johnson, who was a teenager when he accompanied his father to Atlanta for the first time in 1979. “They sold the beer in gallon jugs. It was a totally different situation than we were accustomed to in Minnesota.

“It was definitely interesting, I took a few notes and went back to school and told everyone about it.”

The spirits flowed freely in those early days and maybe the race promoters helped along the situation. Since no bottles were allowed into the gates,
those attending the races were encouraged to trade out their glass bottles for convenient gallon jugs.

This only encouraged the mayhem at times.

Bob Frey had a birds-eye view to the extracurricular action from his vantage point in the tower. He announced the first IHRA national event in 1976 and up until the track switched sanctions in 1980.
 

Roy Johnson has since retired from driving but remembers the days when he raced Super Stock at the old Atlanta Dragway. According to him, you had to be on the lookout for fans who would get drunk and fall onto the track. (Greg Russell)

“The funniest part used to be in just watching the fans in the parking lots when there used to be large rolling hills,” Frey recalled. “At the end of qualifying, they use to take their street cars, not 4X4’s, and try to drive them up the hills. If you had some rain there were times they would slide down and end up on the roof. I believe a few of them had been partaking in the spirits during the course of the day. There was a good chance many woke up the next day and wondered what happened to their cars.”

However, if the parking lot action became a little too threatening, there were those racers who would sometimes come to the aid of the race fans. One of those who didn’t run from a good fight was Roy Hill, Pro Stock runner-up to Warren Johnson in the final IHRA Commerce event.

“If you didn’t bring a gun with you, you needed to come see me,” said Hill, laughing with the comment. “There were times it could get really rowdy. There were a few people who would come out of the hills to this race.”

For Bennett, the founder of the facility, just making the facility match his vision was a challenge over the first few years.

“It was one of those things where in theory, it looked like it was going to be good,” explained Frey. “When it came to the actual operation there were so many things that just weren’t right.”

Taking inventory of the early miscues, the most apparent was the location of the grandstands which made the Atlanta Dragway experience an up close and personal affair. This was an issue which wouldn’t be resolved until later in the 1980s.

“The fans could actually sit on the wall and dangle their legs over the side,” Frey recalled. “I’m sure it really wasn’t a good thing when cars could run by and you could pat them on the roof as they passed.”

Bob Frey announced the first-ever Atlanta Dragway national event in 1976. One of his fondest memories was of watching the inebriated fans in the parking lot. (Jon Asher)

Outside of the obvious safety issues, what else was so bad about the fans being so close to the track? At Rockingham and Bristol, sometimes inebriated fans would want to be even closer to the action.

Roy Johnson, now an engine builder for his son Pro Stock racer Allen Johnson, raced the old configuration at Atlanta Dragway as a Super Stock racer.

“You were just always on the lookout for one of them falling over on the track,” said Johnson, cracking a smile. “I can remember racing Rockingham when a race official stopped me right after my burnout because someone had climbed the fence and fell onto the track. I came up to the starting line in Atlanta from time to time wondering when I was going to get the signal to shut off.”

Bennett put up fencing to head off the problem but there was an issue with the plan.

“The gauge of the fence was so thick then you couldn’t even see the cars,” said Frey, shaking his head at the misfortune. “So they had to take that down. I felt so badly for the guy because Gene and his wife were such good people. It’s one of those things where until you actually get it and put together, you would never know.”

Warren Johnson, who first raced the facility in 1979 and eventually moved to the area making the track his home facility, understood Bennett’s intentions and applauded him.

“He had to basically carve the thing out of the woods,” said Warren Johnson. “And he did a remarkable job. As the sport of drag racing grew he tried to make the improvements.”

Atlanta Dragway hosted its final IHRA event in 1979 and following a reported disagreement between its ownership and then IHRA President Larry Carrier, didn’t hold a national event in 1980 before making the conversion to NHRA in 1981.

Frey believes the track’s original owner was a man who deserved better than fate afforded him.
“He was just so determined to build a beautiful drag strip,” said Frey. “By the standards of the 1970s, it was really a nice facility.”

It was just different, that’s all.