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shuffletown dragstrip North Carolina ?????

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by 49ratfink, Apr 2, 2008.

  1. 49ratfink
    Joined: Feb 8, 2004
    Posts: 18,828

    49ratfink
    Member
    from California

    I know a guy who grew up next to Shuffltown Dragstrip in Charlotte North Carolina.. anybody ever been there?
     
  2. bigjohnson
    Joined: Dec 2, 2007
    Posts: 98

    bigjohnson
    Member

    Never been there myself, too young. But my dad and uncle have a few good stories about it. I don't know if you know, but shuffletown was shut down quite while ago. Damn neighborhood was buit around it, and people complained about the noise. Seems like comon sence to me, DON'T BUILD YOU FUCKING HOUSE NEAR A DRAGSTRIP IF YOU DON'T LIKE LOUD NOISES!

    Anyway, it's BEEN gone, but my dad had alot of fun there in the mid-late 70's. I hope the new concord strip is half the fun!
     
  3. jbradleyd
    Joined: Sep 8, 2007
    Posts: 118

    jbradleyd
    Member

    Been closed along time but there building a new BIG TIME dragstrip in Charlotte (Well Concord) but real close it's gonna be done in the fall and there hosting a NHRA nat'l event. It's Bruton Smith's Deal
     
  4. bigjohnson
    Joined: Dec 2, 2007
    Posts: 98

    bigjohnson
    Member

    I can't wait for Bruton's strip! Finally some fresh asphalt! Hope test&tune prices are reasonable.;)
     

  5. jbradleyd
    Joined: Sep 8, 2007
    Posts: 118

    jbradleyd
    Member

    Yea right its Bruton's hope they dont put in pay toilets
     
  6. 49ratfink
    Joined: Feb 8, 2004
    Posts: 18,828

    49ratfink
    Member
    from California

    when did it close? my buddy says he was there like 1974 or so.
     
  7. bigjohnson
    Joined: Dec 2, 2007
    Posts: 98

    bigjohnson
    Member

    My dad say early to mid 80's, He can't remember. What is your friends name? My dad may know him.
     
  8. Deuce Roadster
    Joined: Sep 8, 2002
    Posts: 9,519

    Deuce Roadster
    Member Emeritus

    I went there a lot from 1969 to 1974. Shuffletown was kind of down in a little valley. It had been there for years but houses and folks kept moving closer and closer and they wanted it QUIET ... They tried to shut it down a couple times with no sucess but got the bright idea that the City of Charlotte already had NOISE laws on the books and they voted themselves into the city limits of Charlotte ... just to shut down the dragstrip. :eek: That worked ... :mad:

    I would guess mid 1980's ... but it is a guess. I moved away from the area in the mid 70's, quit drag racing in the early 80's.
     
  9. hog mtn dave
    Joined: Jul 14, 2004
    Posts: 1,352

    hog mtn dave
    Member

  10. coop31
    Joined: Jun 24, 2006
    Posts: 160

    coop31
    Member

    I lived in Charlotte for 10yrs and ran there for 4yrs. It was old school racing at the best. I remember when it was standing room only for the
    Door Slamer events in the early 90s. Names like Ronny Sox, Scotty Cannon and Tommy Mooney man it was great, those guys put on a killer show, very narrow track. The anouncer was one of the best around. I was a shame it closed.
     
  11. slysball
    Joined: Aug 29, 2006
    Posts: 71

    slysball
    Member

    I know it well. I spent alot of time there in the mid 80's. I was surprised to see it had closed. In the 80's they seemed to have very good car counts.
     
  12. customcory
    Joined: Apr 25, 2007
    Posts: 1,831

    customcory
    Member

    I was born in Charlotte and from 1960 on till it closed , there wasnt hardly a weekend we didnt drive by and see the action. Saw it when it was a dirt strip. My dad raced on it.Every once in a while we would sit on the hood of the car and watch. I grew up about a mile away. I would sit on my tricycle and could hear them go thru the gears on the weekends in my driveway!.:D
     
  13. leadsled01
    Joined: Nov 19, 2004
    Posts: 1,123

    leadsled01
    Member

    I hate to hi-jack this thread, but, I will have an empty car hauler from Akron Ohio to Charlotte NC. on 4-18-08 if anyone needs something hauled that way, PM me...
     
  14. My first trip there was in 1968. I think it closed for good in 1992.
     
  15. terd ferguson
    Joined: Jun 13, 2008
    Posts: 3,716

    terd ferguson
    Member

    I think I remember a news story about the owner getting busted with a shit ton of weed when they were trying to shut it down. I think that was the the straw.
     
  16. frank spittle
    Joined: Jan 29, 2009
    Posts: 1,672

    frank spittle
    Member

    I was not a member of the HAMB when this thread was started about two years ago but I do know about Shuffletown Drag Strip. It was built beside a creek in 1959 at the request of the Charlotte police department to get hot rodders off the street. It was a 1/5th mile dirt track. I was 15 years old and only lived about 5 miles away. I rode my bike there a few times before getting my drivers license in 1960. I bought my first motorcycle, a '57 Triumph Bonneville, in 1963 and started racing it there. The track was paved in 1964 and shortened to an 1/8 mile. I made at least 1000 passes down that track over the next 19 years on various motorcycles from street bikes to twin engine T/F Harleys. It was a very narrow track but there were few accidents. In over 30 years of racing there was not a single fatal crash. The original promoter organized great races and would pack the place. It was open year round, weather permitting. In 1969 I was racing my A/F Harley there and the top draw was a match race between Don Garlits and Tommy Ivo. My girlfriend (wife now) got an autographed picture of Garlits which she still has.

    The track changed management in the late 80s and the new manager was a @#$%^&. In my opinion the track could have stayed open under conditional use if a decent person had been running it. But it is just another story of a place that helped stop street racing that is gone now. I ride by it once in a blue moon and instantly drop about 40 years. The grass is growing up through the asphalt but not enough to keep you from remembering what was.
     
  17. I posted some pics in another thread at the beginning of january. A friend and I went roaming around there right after christmas. Heres a few more:
     

    Attached Files:

  18. Whistler225
    Joined: Jan 16, 2012
    Posts: 2

    Whistler225
    Member

    I know this is an old thread..... but Shuffletown is still relevant because of the example it provides.....

    my father and I were the official film crew there for a number of years from the mid 80's to the early 90's before they shut it down. Anyone who went to the track saw us on top of the timing tower... what a great place for racing! It was a terrible shame when the jerks who built their houses on top of it started crying about the noise. Tommy Mauney was one dad's close friends before he went to the NHRA. We also knew guys like Jeff Hughes, Eddie Hoover, Noah Brackett, Scotty Cannon (the Cannonball was one of the most awesome pro-mod cars EVER and I had the neat opportunity to work for Triple D Publishing, the company that sponsored him and changed it to the OnSat car before Scotty stopped driving the Willy's) and others who were regulars at the track....selling the tapes was a neat opportunity for a young guy like me to meet the drivers and provide them with something they often wanted and needed. Many of them felt that being able to watch themselves drive from outside the car was valuable..... Dad still has most of the races we taped in his collection....for a 1/8th mile track Shuffletown was probably one of if not the most popular strip on the IRHA circuit, at least in the Carolinas.....they had one of the best announcers in the sport as well (though damned if I can remember his name at the moment lol.....)

    This place was an icon to racing enthusiasts and brought commerce into what was then a pretty thinly populated area north of Charlotte. When the subdivisions and businesses started creeping up Hwy 16, everyone could read the writing on the wall.... and what was for many years a really cool experience for many thousands of people was rather callously and coldly shut down forever. The strip is still there as far as I know (I lived in the trailer park about half a mile north of it for a couple of years), but it is almost impossible to see unless you know where it is. You won't just drive down that road and see it and say "oh hey, there's the old racetrack." It's a crying shame and other track owners should see it as a cautionary tale.....if you see civilization start to encroach on your area, MOVE while you still earn the capital to do so lol......
     
  19. Whistler225
    Joined: Jan 16, 2012
    Posts: 2

    Whistler225
    Member

    wow..... I wouldn't stand on top of that timing tower now! lol..... wow that is really sad to see those..... but nice to see that someone cares enough to go out and find it.....
     
  20. z10kl
    Joined: Jan 17, 2012
    Posts: 1

    z10kl
    Member
    from Denver NC

    Whistler, do you remember a 69 Camaro orange with white stripes called "The Ground Ponder" In the mid 80s I think. Larry sombody ran it at Shuffletown. He was a friend of Bobby Baucom maybe.
     
  21. customcory
    Joined: Apr 25, 2007
    Posts: 1,831

    customcory
    Member

    We lived on pumptown road, may not be called that now.
     
  22. MyFather in Law, Jimmy Whitley has shared a ton of storys about racing there when it was dirt, with Mud Grips as he called them!!!!! He raced as 49 Ford there.......
     
  23. blowerdude
    Joined: Apr 5, 2008
    Posts: 57

    blowerdude
    Member
    from shelby nc

    Larry Wright was the announcer. Plenty of videos on youtube: Shuffletown Dragway Quick 8. Check it out. :)Tommy Mauney
     
  24. I spent many,many Sunday afternoons at Shuffletown in my teen years.. Started there in '59 with my buddys '40 Ford ( Nailhead,LaSalle trans.. !!) It was dirt and you backed up against the roadbank to get lined up. We scoured the town for some big "mudgrip" tires and found some recaps.. They didn't last long!!!
    At one time, a local barber ran the strip,Scratch Whisnant. We would sneak a crowd in by hiding in the trunk. One day ,we went to get our hair cut & Scratch gave us a lecture on sneaking in!!!
    My daughter lives close by & she snagged a chunk of asphalt from the old track. It's now a neighborhood park..but you can still make out where the old track was...
     
  25. spot
    Joined: Jun 10, 2009
    Posts: 212

    spot
    Member
    from usa

    I grew up about 15 miles west of the track. My brother and Iused to go there a lot. Some great racing. The most fun was watching the old guys in the stands bet on ET, top speed and who would break out. The arguements were classic. We'd often go with a friend that had a 65 f100 with a ti-power 352 that consistantly ran 8 sec times. That truck fooled a lot of people.
     
  26. 214Gearjammer
    Joined: Jan 22, 2009
    Posts: 181

    214Gearjammer
    Member
    from Dallas, TX

    Hot Rod Magazine had a pic of it in their "Forgotten Dragstrips" feature they used to do every month--been a year or two, I don't know what issue but I have it somewhere.
    I lived in South Charlotte from the 50's till I got drafted in the early 70s.
    It was a pretty long way from us but we hitchhiked there until we were old enuff to drive.
    Never forget two super cool guys. An older gent with overalls and a fat cigar in a blue Anglia that blew away every "big name" that ever showed up. That Anglia probably went a 1/4 mile down the 1/8 mile because it didn't exactly go straight---but he always tripped the lites first!
    Also a guy they called Jungle Boy. I don't remember if he had his own car but he was the most famous mechanic around and everyone wanted him tuning their car. I went by his shop one time with my 301 powered 64 Chevelle when it had a big miss in the engine. He was a little put out that this long haired kid was interrupting him; but he just walked within 10 feet of my car, hood wasn't even up, and he said I had a bent exhaust valve on #6 cylinder. I looked at his partner incredulously, and he said pull the head and we'll fix it. He was 100% right -- I couldn't believe it! What a gift he had!
    I don't remember there being bleachers at the track cause we always pulled our cars up to the fence and sat on the hood.
    I was lucky enough in the Marines to be stationed at El Toro where we could see OCIR from our barracks. We went there anytime we heard an engine fire up and it was kool but it did not have the same warm, friendly feeling as good old Shuffletown!
     
  27. 214Gearjammer: Re: Bob "Jungle Boy" Lane.. He's still alive & kicking!! Still doing machine work ( Lane Automotive, Stanley NC).. although his sons are doing most of the work...Don't go by in the late afternoon, as Jungle still likes a taste of Moonshine after work
     
  28. 214Gearjammer
    Joined: Jan 22, 2009
    Posts: 181

    214Gearjammer
    Member
    from Dallas, TX

    Ha! Love it! Turbo26T, I was at his shop hoping to ask a question one time--mind you, just a 16 year old punk kid in awe of the whole scene. They would not let me bother him cause he was on a lathe making parts for a Model A. I asked, " Can't you still buy those parts?"
    They said, sure....but he would rather make his own. That way he knows the quality of them! I had never been exposed to anyone so capable before! Amazing Dude. Absolutely legendary in the Mt. Holly area.
     
  29. spot
    Joined: Jun 10, 2009
    Posts: 212

    spot
    Member
    from usa

    Turbo26T Now that brings back old memories. A buddy of mine had a "jungle" motor in his 56 chevy pickup back in high school (around 81 or so) Man that thing would twist so fast. Loved the sound of it. I'd forgotten all about Jungle. My brother still lives in Kings Mountain I'll ask him if he's run across any Jungle motors lately.
    By they way I grew up in G-town. Went to Huss.
    Small world ain't it!
     
  30. frank spittle
    Joined: Jan 29, 2009
    Posts: 1,672

    frank spittle
    Member

    stude28.jpg Here is a Chrysler Hemi engine Jungle built for me a few years ago. I have known him for 50 years. He is in his mid to late 70s and will build engines until the day he kicks the bucket. He called my Hemi a "boat anchor" when I brought it to him but by the time he did the machine work and assembled it he liked it. His afternoon alcohol boosts are legendary and so is his grumpiness. He is definitely a one-of-a-kind.
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2016

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