Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 9/3/10
When the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour rolls into Atlanta this weekend, it will be mark the last time the tour will visit the 50 year old facility twice in one season for the foreseeable future.
It’s an odd situation to see Atlanta lose its spring race date. Since it’s first event in 1960, the speedway has hosted to Cup events yearly.
But the spring race has always been a tough sell. And, with the opportunity to go to new venues, the decision was made to limit AMS to only one event, the successful Labor Day race, for 2011.
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Posted 03 September 2010
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Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 8/6/10
For some reason in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a slew of stock car racing movies filmed in the south.
Some were okay, some were terrible, but many of them had one thing in common – they were made by people who really didn’t know what stock car racing was all about.
The film “White Lightning Road” is just such a film. It was made in 1965, written, directed and produced by Ron Ormond, a low-budget filmmaker from Nashville.
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Posted 06 August 2010
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Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 7/30/10
Reports from the Associated Press this week said that two of NASCAR’s top tier drivers were handed down stiff financial penalties recently for making critical comments publicly about the racing series.
In other words, after telling them “boys, have at it” in the off season, it was followed by “boys, keep your traps shut.”
This move has been justified by some since other big league sports have taken the same path over the years.
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Posted 30 July 2010
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Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 7/2/10
First off, let me start this column by saying a big thank you to all our readers!
Georgia Racing History.com turned one year old on June 26. So far, the response has been phenomenal, and we can’t say thank you enough!
The birth of this website actually started more than a year prior to the website being officially launched. It began as a conversation between myself and Mike Bell, the historian and CEO of the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association.
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Posted 02 July 2010
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Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 6/21/10
Of the late Glenn “Fireball” Roberts passing, sports writer Max Muhleman once wrote that it was like waking up to find that a mountain that had always been there was suddenly gone.
That’s how members of the Georgia racing community felt Sunday after learning of the passing of Mr. Raymond Parks.
Mr. Parks passed away in his sleep early Sunday morning at his home in Atlanta. He had celebrated his 96th birthday just two weeks prior.
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Posted 21 June 2010
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Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 5/28/10
If there’s ever been a track on the NASCAR circuit that drivers have struggled to get a handle on, it would have to be the 1.5 mile Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Year after year, drivers have looked for the right way around the venerable old speedway, looking for the right combination to win NASCAR’s longest event, the famed World 600.
That struggle goes all the way back to its first event back on Memorial Day of 1960, when two key drivers with Georgia ties were at the center of the first 600-mile grind.
The first World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was a grueling event that broke several cars, and several hearts before the checkered flag fell.
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Posted 28 May 2010
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Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 5/7/10
It was 62 years ago this month that the racing world lost a driver that many felt would have been an early NASCAR star.
On May 16, 1948, Swayne Pritchett of Baldwin lost his life due to injuries sustained in a racing accident in Jefferson, GA.
Pritchett was born in 1922, and early on, was fascinated by speed. As many young men of the day were, he was involved in the moonshine business.
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Posted 07 May 2010
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Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 4/30/10
Tony Stewart was in the Peach State this past week, turning test laps at the redesigned Gresham Motorsports Park in Jefferson, Georgia, along with two other Sprint Cup teams.
Stewart was impressive as he turned laps in his Chevrolet, which is usually adorned with the number 14. On this day, the Chevy Stewart was piloting had no numbers or decals.
Stewart has piloted the number 14 for the last season and a half. He announced he’d race under that number when he announced his buy-in to the as part owner to what was then Haas-CNC Racing.
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Posted 30 April 2010
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Mike Bell
By Mike Bell
Posted in Columns 4/16/10
Last year, I met Heather Rhodes, the publisher and editor of Slingin’ Dirt Magazine at Hartwell Speedway while the Carolina Clash was stirring up the red clay?
“Could you do something on history for publication in the paper?” was her request. Here’s what I shared with her.
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Posted 16 April 2010
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Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 4/2/10
In the last few years, the success of Danica Patrick in Indy car racing and Ashley Force in NHRA drag racing has drawn more and more attention to women competing in auto racing.
The phenomenal attention that Patrick gained and continues to garner this year with her stint into the stock car world has continued to fuel the age old question of just when the glass ceiling will be broken in NASCAR.
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Posted 01 April 2010
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