Taylor Satterfield, who brought home a track championship at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in 2019, will join many of his fellow weekly competitors in pursuing the $30,000 race-winning paycheck at the track this weekend for the Solid Rock Carriers CARS Tour Old North State Nationals.
The Old North State Nationals had been circled on Satterfield’s calendar since the CARS Tour announced its return, but he is thrilled to make a short trip to a track synonymous with so much history to stock car racing in the United States.
“This is an awesome opportunity for us, our team and our family,” Satterfield said. “With us being from North Georgia, Greenville is about 90 minutes away from my house, but we actually planned on going to Orange County to run this race. Now that it’s at Greenville, the whole family gets to come, so it’s going to be a fun time.”
Satterfield has been actively competing since the mid-1990s when he started racing go-karts. He proceeded to win multiple championships in several different disciplines of auto racing before finding himself behind the wheel of a Pro Late Model in 2004.
Satterfield became a regular in the Georgia Asphalt Series starting in 2005 and ended up scoring two victories in the division at South Alabama Speedway and Senoia Raceway in 2007. Satterfield moved to the ASA Southeast Asphalt Tour full-time in 2008, where he recorded four Top 5s and finished third in the point standings.
The Great Recession of 2008 caused Satterfield to pause his racing career at the start of the new decade, but he found an opportunity to get back behind the wheel in 2016 when he purchased a Late Model so that he could run locally at facilities like Greenville-Pickens and Anderson Motor Speedway.
Satterfield admitted that he has grown to appreciate Late Model racing over the last few years and everything that goes in to making them efficient on track, but although Satterfield has preferred the short driving distance to Greenville-Pickens and Anderson, he hopes to visit more tracks once the pandemic ends.
“We’ve really enjoyed running Late Model Stocks,” Satterfield said. “I really like the cars because you have to hustle them. You’ve got more motor than you need and the cars are real heavy and bulky. It’s been really fun, and now we have seven wins and a track championship at Greenville-Pickens, but we haven’t really gone out and explored too many places yet outside of Hickory because of this mess with COVID-19.”
Having logged hundreds of laps at Greenville-Pickens during his career, Satterfield said that a win at the track comes down to how well a driver attacks the corners, but he affirmed that it will also be imperative for competitors to not use up their equipment too early if they want to be in a position to win $30,000.
While other drivers have anticipated Greenville-Pickens being a one-groove track for the Old North State Nationals, Satterfield said that he and several other regulars at the track have ventured up to the top groove during weekly events and expects something similar to unfold on Sunday.
Even with his experience, Satterfield knows it will be a tall order for him to put together a strong performance against a talented field of drivers, but he is determined to get everything he can out of his Late Model so he can join Lee Pulliam as a winner in the Old North State Nationals.
“Most of these guys race for a living,” Satterfield said. “We don’t unfortunately, but we have as good a chance to win this race as anybody else does and I do feel good about our chances. Josh Berry and so many other guys are going to be there, but we want the best in the business to be at Greenville-Pickens. because that’s who we want to outrun.”
Along with the CARS Tour regulars and other Late Model veterans, Satterfield will have to best a decent crowd of familiar faces at Greenville-Pickens on Sunday afternoon in former track champions like Trey Gibson and current track promoter Anthony Anders.
Photo: Kristy Smith-Palmer
