Bob Harris just smiles, then chuckles a little when he considers how the last month of his life has played out. The former drag racer, track owner, race official and Pro Modified team co-owner has spent a lifetime finding his way back into drag racing, even when he thought he had finally gotten away from it.
Harris is the kind of fellow who could fall into a septic tank and somehow come out smelling like a rose.
His latest adventure began when he considered purchasing Piedmont Dragway from Darryl Cuttell, the IHRA owner who had begun unloading racetracks acquired during his expansion into track ownership. Harris wanted to rescue the once-proud eighth-mile facility outside Greensboro, N.C., but eventually realized his heart was doing considerably more talking than his business judgment.
He walked away, essentially telling Cuttell, “thanks, but no thanks,” only to have businessman and former Piedmont racer Greg Loflin come calling with an offer. Loflin and Terry Ferrell would purchase the track, provided Harris agreed to become general manager.
“Look, if you think it’s a good deal,” Harris recalled Loflin telling him. “I’ll buy it. Me and Terry will buy it.”
There was one stipulation, and Harris knew better than to expect a free ride.
“You got to run it,” Loflin told him, according to Harris.
Harris initially preferred a supporting role, but Loflin wasn’t interested in that arrangement. The agreement brought Harris back to the track he helped operate from 1995 until 2011, with an understanding that he would eventually groom a younger successor.
“I told him that I’d run it until I couldn’t run it, as long as my health holds out,” Harris said. “And I want to train a younger person, somebody in their 30s or 40s that want to make a career here, that wants to stay here like I did and love this place like Jim Turner and myself.”
For Harris, returning to Piedmont holds considerably more emotion than another management assignment. He spent 16 years helping operate the facility alongside Turner, building relationships with racers and spectators that never disappeared after he sold his interest.
“I’m really excited,” Harris said. “I mean, I’d always miss Piedmont because so many years there and I love the race and I love the people that raced there and I loved all our spectators. So many of them I knew personally. I live about 35 minutes from the track, so I’m really excited. At my age, I shouldn’t be this excited, but I am.”
The racetrack awaiting Harris is hardly the one he left behind.
Cuttell had envisioned a multimillion-dollar transformation of Piedmont, with new racing facilities and expanded pits. Demolition began, but the rebuilding never followed, leaving Harris with a racing surface surrounded by missing retaining walls, dismantled equipment, damaged infrastructure and unfinished excavation.
“That vision is what I’m working on right now,” Harris said. “It’s a dug up racetrack and I got a lot of work to do, a lot of work.”
Harris said the concrete surface installed in 1997 remains and can serve as the foundation for the replacement. Much of the surrounding infrastructure, including the timing system, public-address equipment, fencing and lighting, must be rebuilt or replaced.
The new ownership group isn’t waiting around.
Harris said American Concrete has been contracted for between 1,000 and 1,500 feet of concrete, followed by asphalt work in the shutdown area. The plans also include new retaining walls, LED lighting, an Accutime timing system, scoreboards, aluminum bleachers and a public-address system.
“We signed a contract with them last week,” Harris said. “In fact, they’re out here right now, just pulled up, and they’re going to start paving this thing next week.”
A separate drifting facility is also planned on the property, which Harris estimates now encompasses approximately 110 acres. That would allow drifting and drag racing to operate independently rather than competing for the same pavement.
Loflin brings more than money to the project.
A former Big Dog competitor, he owns a manufacturing business producing skid-steer attachments, along with TKM Performance and Mr. RPM. Harris said Loflin has spent days operating bulldozers and other heavy equipment himself, working alongside the people restoring the property.
The willingness to get dirty has been matched by an unexpected response from the racing community.
Harris said hundreds of people have contacted him offering to help, including volunteers willing to paint, mow grass and repair buildings without compensation. One longtime supporter known as Dr. Gas arrived with a trailer full of lawn equipment and spent several days cleaning up the grounds.
“Every time I pull in the gate, he’s still about here,” Harris said. “I don’t think he ever works nowhere else. I think he just works here.”
Harris said the offers have been particularly meaningful because he heard from racers and spectators pleading with him to save Piedmont before the ownership arrangement came together. Some were emotional enough to cry during their telephone conversations.
“Well, I’m not a rich person,” Harris said. “I couldn’t save this track by myself without some financial help, without going to the bank, because there’s got to be millions spent here, not hundreds of thousands.”
Harris said the concrete work alone would exceed $1 million. He and his son, Jason, considered buying the property, but the financial commitment and demands of running a track seven days a week threatened the family business and their opportunity to continue racing together.
When Harris became Turner’s partner in 1995, he immediately spent $7,000 installing signs thanking spectators for attending and reminding them to drive safely. Turner let him have his way before eventually asking whether he still thought the signs were such a good investment.
“I guess I just threw away $7,000,” Harris recalled telling Turner.
His immediate goal is to have Piedmont operating by April 1, 2027, preferably with the Big Dog Shootout serving as the opening event. Rick Moore is helping coordinate construction, while longtime employee Liz Vance will work full time in the operation.
There is another piece of Piedmont’s history Harris intends to restore.
Jim and Dora Turner purchased the track in the early 1980s and helped turn what Harris remembered as little more than a cow pasture into a respected racing facility. After speaking with their son, Jay Turner, Harris plans to dedicate the tower in their memory and return Dora’s ashes to the property, where she had wanted them buried.
“So we’re going to do a memorial and put Dora back where she wanted to be and name the tower after Jim and Dora Memorial Tower,” Harris said. “And I talked to Greg and he said, ‘Hey, I’m all for that. I always liked them.'”
For Harris, the return has already interrupted a comfortable retirement routine of late breakfasts, visits to Jason’s automotive shop and afternoons watching Gunsmoke. Instead, he’s back to early mornings, construction meetings and trying to keep up with a mind that apparently hasn’t received the message that his body is getting older.
“Well, my body’s slowed down,” Harris said. “My brain’s still going, but my body’s trying to quit on me, if that makes sense.”
He could have remained on the sidelines and watched somebody else tackle Piedmont’s problems. Instead, Harris is back doing the very thing he talked himself out of doing, only this time somebody else owns the racetrack.
“And in my age, even if I had that much money, I shouldn’t do it because who in the world wants to spend every day of their life at a racetrack?” Harris said. “I guess Bob Harris. I don’t know.”
