Qualla: Lakewood Speedway

Lakewood Speedway: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Big Enos and Little Enos found the Bandit at a truck rodeo. That opening scene of Smokey and the Bandit, filmed at the Lakewood Fairgrounds in 1977, captured something true about the place: Lakewood Speedway was where the South came to race, to bet, and to watch machines tear around a one-mile dirt oval built for horses. From 1917 to 1979, this track south of downtown Atlanta hosted every form of motorsport imaginable, from Indy cars and stock cars to midgets, motorcycles, and even boats on the infield lake. They called it the Indianapolis of the South, and for the better part of the twentieth century, the nickname fit.

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Lakewood Speedway: Horses, Then Horsepower

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1916, Atlanta officials chose the Lakewood Fairgrounds as the site for agricultural fairs and built a one-mile horse racing track around a lake. The first events came on July 4, 1917, when a horse race and a motorcycle race drew 23,000 spectators. An automobile race followed l...

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Lakewood Speedway: Where the King Got His Start

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Lakewood's most famous moment belongs to Richard Petty. In 1959, the young driver took the checkered flag for what he believed was his first NASCAR Grand National victory. His father, Lee Petty, who had finished second, protested the result and requested a recount of the race sco...

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Lakewood Speedway: The Price of Speed

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Lakewood was fast and unforgiving. The dirt surface, the asymmetric turns, and the era's minimal safety equipment made the track lethal. Skimp Hersey received severe burns in a stock car crash on June 11, 1950, and died the following day. Frank Luptow of Tampa was killed when a b...

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Lakewood Speedway: The Last Lap

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When Atlanta Motor Speedway opened twenty miles to the south in 1960, it was a modern, paved superspeedway that immediately absorbed Lakewood's NASCAR dates. The old dirt track could not compete. Racing continued on a smaller scale through the 1960s and 1970s, but the crowds thin...

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