Golden Isles Speedway, Brunswick GA, March 3, 2007 2007 March 6
On Saturday, March 3 it was off to three Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick Georgia for some dirt track racing. This track is about 40 miles North of Jacksonville not far from the Georgia Coast. Before the racing I took in some of the sites along the Atlantic by visiting Jekyll Island. I also stopped in GA Pig for some BBQ. While I’m sure Georgia has many fine BBQ places and some have chopped pork sandwiches as good as GA Pig, I doubt many have any better. If you are ever driving past Exit 29 on I-95 in Georgia and are hungry for BBQ, I’d highly recommend it.
This was the regular season opener for Golden Isles Speedway. They had a few nights of racing pre-Daytona Speedweeks about a month ago, but this was the first points show. They announced that next year they will have 10 nights of racing over 11 days for their Speedweeks. Combine all of the racing in Florida during Speedweeks and you can wrack up some serious numbers for the Racechaser in you! Golden Isles Speedway is currently 5/8th miles long and used to be an “oiled dirt track” and was known for being wicked fast. In fact, I remember hearing that a few of the big-name national dirt track drivers went there once t practice and left because it was too fast! I don’t know if it is true or not, but it makes a good story. I wish I made it to the track while it still had an oiled dirt surface. Anyway, the EPA (and probably a bunch of the drivers), made the track dig up all of that oil-soaked dirt a few years back and put in a regular red clay surface. This slowed the speeds down a bunch, but apparently not enough, as this June they are cutting the track down to 3/8th a mile. So, you better get there soon if you want to see the bigger track. The racing was rather good and they had decent car counts in most of the classes. A couple were pretty low (one of the three street stock classes had about 10 cars and another 3). The stands were pretty empty though. The racing was quite enjoyable and like the South Alabama Speedway show the night before, I got out of there happy and content at a reasonable hour. I skipped the last race of the evening (for the 3 pure stocks) and made it to my car just about 10:30 PM. This was my first race in the state of Georgia, and my first new dirt track of the year.
My 2007 Stats after Golden Isle Speedway are:
Races: 8
Tracks: 4 (2 new) (152 lifetime)
States: 4 (2 new) (37 lifetime)
OK even though you weren’t in Atlanta, this post brought back memories of when we lived there in the 70s, during the Atlanta Motor Speedway’s “smaller times”. My dad was mechanic for some famous guy whose name escapes me, and we went to races lots (not dirt track). It was very exciting for me not so much for the cars, though they were thrilling, but for the 1000s of lizards scared up by the noise and vibration. It was a sight. Wonder if that even happens anymore.
i go to golden isles every saturday nite they are racing and have been for a long time my family own about 6 dirt track cars and it is a very fast track everyone should experience it at least ounce.