Every Saturday night iron thunder rumbles through the wooded hills and valleys of Northeast Georgia. Cars built by hand speed headlong into high-banked left hand turns kicking up the red Georgia clay. Here racing is almost as important to the pride and heritage of the people as Saturday afternoon football. Toccoa Raceway is not just another place to watch a race; it’s a part of racing history. The track is the oldest continuously operating dirt track in Georgia. It will turn 60 this year on May 7. This means when anyone attends a race, he or she becomes part of a six-decade-long history of racing at the track.
Much like anything in the South, the beginnings of the Toccoa Raceway are shrouded in legend. Some say Garland Sheriff built the track as an entertainment venue to turn a profit. Others like Pat Headen, wife of legendary driver J.R. Headen, say otherwise.
“Mr. Sheriff built the track so one of his sons who wanted to race NASCAR could practice. People started coming up here to watch him practice, and before you knew it they were having races,” said Pat, her grey eyes sparkling as she reminisced the days of her youth. Her first experience at the track was not just to go watch racing but also to attend the gospel concert being held on the front straightaway.
The history and atmosphere of the track is the unanimous answer when folks are asked why they come out every Saturday.
“There is something special about this place,” said auto racing expert and current Toccoa Raceway announcer, Charles Head.
“You can feel it when you get out of your car, the smell, the sounds. It’s indescribable.”
Head has a special connection with the track. It’s where his career in announcing began. Since that first race he announced at Toccoa Raceway in 1974, he has called over 10,000 individual races and maintains a 25-year running radio show about racing on WCON in Cornelia. The track is such a big part of Head’s life that after landing a job as the announcer at Atlanta Motor Speedway, he drove straight to Toccoa Raceway to relish the moment.
On April 18, one of those amazing Toccoa Raceway moments happened in the closing laps of the Hobby 602 feature race. The 17 car of Brandon Stroud slid underneath the 82 car of George Reece making slight contact and bringing a roaring crowd to its feet as the cars took the white flag signaling the last lap of the race. At the end of that lap, 17 took the checkered flag first. As a cloud of dirt rained down over the crowd, and the roar of the engines was palpable in the chest, the moment could only be defined as something most race fans only dream of experiencing. It’s these moments that make the track such a special place full of memories and history.
When Head was asked why he has came back to the track to announce, he responded, “There’s nothing like it,. Cars go sliding into the corner, and then cars are side by side all the way through the corner. Then it’s a race to see who can get their car back straight and going in the right direction.”
No one knows the feeling of sliding two-by-two around the high-banked corners of Toccoa Raceway quite as well as 76-year-old driver of the 1x car, J.R. Headen.
“This place keeps you on your toes. As fast as you go here, there’s no room for error,” said Headen.
Headen can be found in his usual spot; standing beside his race trailer parked on the infield in turn one, dressed in his navy blue race suit with his name and number embroidered over his heart. Headen chuckled when I asked him why he continues to race. “It’s my favorite thing to do. They can’t take it out of me. If I can work, I can race.”
Headen’s 44 year career in racing at Toccoa Raceway started by chance when the person he built a race car for was too scared to drive it. When he arrived at Toccoa Raceway for his first race in 1966, “There was already someone with a number one car so I painted an X beside mine and when I won the race I figured I didn’t need to change it.”
After that first win, Headen couldn’t get enough of the track, winning the track championship in 1994, 1999, 2002, and most recently 2010, according to wife Pat and speedway records.
With all these track championships, the tall, older gentleman selflessly said that his best memory was when his son beat Scott Bloomquist in a touring series race in 1994.
Pat Headen said, “the speed has changed wildly,” as she remembers receiving telephone calls about the track record being set with a lap of 17 seconds. The pole sitter’s time for the late model division, the fastest at the track, on April 18, 2015 was just over 13 seconds.
“Many things have changed at the track in 60 years, most notably the safety equipment and the look of the cars,” said Head.
There are a few things that haven’t changed in that time, one of those things being the local community’s support of racing.
Even local businesses support this community attraction. According to track announcer Charles Head, many concession items come from local businesses as opposed to large corporations. In addition, many racers own local businesses and use those to support their race teams. Headen is a great example of this, running without a paying sponsor for 44 years, using the money he earns as a mechanic to upgrade his car.
“We’ve always had a strong fan base here,” said track promoter Mike Davidson who took over those duties this year.
Davidson said his reasons for keeping the track open were to “make the venue more family friendly and to give the track the love and care it needs.”
“In other areas we are seeing local racing die out, but here the future looks bright. Crowds are growing each week, and we’re looking forward to making Toccoa Raceway a place for families to come watch racing for a long time,” said Davidson, overlooking the legendary track from high above in the newly-renovated press box.
21-year-old driver Brandon Elliott said, “It’s better driving here than in years past.”
Davidson and his wife have taken measures to improve the track so that drivers and fans will be able to say that the track is better than ever. According to track employees, he has built new concession stands, restrooms, and most importantly to drivers, laid down new clay on the racing surface.
There is a buzz about what the promoter has in store for the sixtieth anniversary of the track.
“We’re going to honor all of the people that have made racing here possible. We are even going to have some of the drivers who took part in the first race here come out to the race track,” said Davidson.
That’s not all, any driver who has raced here in the past, will get in free of charge, and for those who may be wondering what racing was like in those early days, there will be vintage race cars present and ready to take to the high banks.
Local racing is more than left-hand turns and a car. It’s an ecosystem all its own. The atmosphere of the track, the history, the local businesses, and the rivalries between drivers are all part of it. It’s something that leaves race fans entranced Saturday evening after Saturday evening.
Head said it best, “Toccoa is special because it’s everyone’s home track.”
