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55 NPS Form 10.90o -a OMB Approval No. 1024 -0o18 (8.86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Occoneechee Speedway Orange County, N.C. Section number 8 Page 7 Summary Occoneechee Speedway, a historic automobile racing complex located within the incorporated limits of the town of Hillsborough in Orange County, is eligible for listing in the National Register under Criterion A for its association with early organized stock car racing in piedmont North Carolina. Occoneechee Speedway is significant at the state level in the areas of social history and recreation for its association with a sport with roots in the bootlegging activities of rural North Carolina where "trippers" transporting illegal liquor in cars with modified engines and beefed -up transmissions attempted to outrun revenuers. Stock car racing, according to historian Pete Daniel's recent study of the South in the 1950s, provided an outleffor working - class whites in the South in the post -war period and in "the wild and frenzied infields and grandstands at stock car races, southerners found the space to reclaim their wildness." Occoneechee Speedway was one of eight east coast racetracks that hosted the first National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing (NASCAR) events and it remains the only NASCAR dirt track that has not been destroyed or paved. Bill France Sr. of Daytona Beach, Florida, along with four North Carolina race organizers, established Hillsboro Speedway Incorporated in September 1947, three months before France held the meeting in Daytona Beach at which NASCAR was formally organized. France and his associates opened Occoneechee Speedway on June 27, 1948, with an estimated 20,000 in attendance to witness Fonty Flock, a member of an early racing dynasty, take the flag. In 1954, the racetrack became known as Orange Speedway when Hillsboro Speedway, Inc. dissolved. Despite protests against auto racing by Orange County clergy in the late 1950s, the speedway operated until 1968 when the Talladega Speedway in Alabama replaced it on the NASCAR circuit. Throughout its twenty -year history, Occoneechee hosted NASCAR's most successful drivers including Richard "The King" Petty, Fireball Roberts, Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett and Lee Petty. The period of significance is 1948 to 1956, the latter year marking the end of Orange Speedway's major role in a sport that had become professionalized with faster, paved tracks replacing earlier, more modest venues like the one in Hillsborough. Although overgrown with trees and foliage, significant structural features remain intact and convey the property's history and significance as an automobile speedway including the hard - packed dirt track, prominent dirt banking that prevented competitors' fast - moving cars from careening into the Eno River, culverts used to drain water from the infield, the hillside on the west side of the track from which spectators watched races, separate entrance and exit roads for competitors and fans and the metal fence used to keep out non - paying fans. Modest buildings standing in various stages of repair, as well as a concrete grandstand occupy the west side of the forty -two acre property.