Greenville-Pickens Speedway

Copy of the program from the first race at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina on July 4, 1946. At 12 years of age, this was the first introduction Jimmie Day had with Bill France, Sr., who was promoting the event.

There were over 20,000 people at the inaugural race at the Greenville-Pickens Speedway for the 1946 Fourth of July weekend.  It was widely noted that on that race day, if you looked at the sky, you would see a big red cloud from miles away.

Owner Bob Willimon put South Carolina on the racing map with his track.  The entire three day event saw horse and stock car races at their finest, and was one of the earliest staged by Bill France under the National Championship Stock Car Racing Circuit.  It was also one of the first events France promoted after retiring from driving earlier in the year.

“I sold programs for Mr. Willimon, and my daddy and I helped build the first grandstands, which were nothing more than wooden boards mounted on concrete blocks,” Jimmie said.  “The day before the big race they had a pole climbing contest.  My daddy and I had cut a pine tree, skinned it, coated it with ten gallons of lard, tacked a fifty-dollar bill on top, and put it right in the middle of the infield.  Us boys coated ourselves with red dirt for grip, but nobody could make it all the way up.

“Finally we made a human ladder and shared the prize.  I won five more dollars for the mule race, five on the greased pig contest and then five for the bike race.  So when I left the track, I had 20 dollars and two pigs because my buddy also caught one but his momma wouldn’t let him keep it.  To that point in my life, that was the dirtiest and richest I’d ever been.”

In 1950, Jimmie ran into his first major setback.  Jail.

“I was sitting in Roscoe Thompson’s stock car at the Greenville-Pickens track,” he said.  “We had been to Toccoa, Georgia the night before and were tuning the engine Sunday morning when this fellow walks out there and says he can’t sleep at night for the noise and starts hitting me with a claw hammer. I got out of the car, took the hammer and whacked him a few times.  Since I had no record, all I got was a fine and probation.

“So one day I’m out posting poles for an upcoming North Wilkesboro race for Bill France, who is paying me a dime a poster, and my sister drove up and I gave her the money to pay my fine.  She went and gave it to my brother, the same one that stole my daddy’s bath water years ago, and he goes and buys himself a 1940 Dodge.  Two and a half years later I got out of jail.  Fifty years later, I still haven’t talked to my brother.”