Middle Georgia Speedway

Opened in 1966 at a cost of $500,000, the first race, the Speedy Morelock 200 NASCAR Grand National stock car race, became the location of a speed record when Richard Petty broke the half-mile NASCAR record for half-mile tracks with an average speed of 82.023 miles per hour during the 100-mile event. The next year, federal agents discovered a moonshine distillery in an underground bunker at turn three. Petty returned to win the 150-mile NASCAR race during the following season. In 1970, the second annual Atlanta International Pop Festival was held in a soybean field adjacent to the track. Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers Band performed in front of 300,000 concertgoers; the town had a population of about 2,000. Seven years later, it was the location for filming of race scenes of the Richard Pryor flick Greased Lightning about Wendell Scott. If not for the occasional landscaping, the track would be completely taken over by Mother Nature.