770-928-0706 - The Cherokee Ledger-News

20 THE CHEROKEE LEDGER-NEWS
LEDGER-NEWS
SPORTS
SPORTS EDITOR: BRANDON MICHEA | 770-928-0706 x203 FAX: 770-928-3152 MAY 20, 2009
AUTO RACING
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The heart of Dixie
SPECIAL
A staple of the community, Dixie Speedway in Woodstock opened with dirt track racing in 1969, before going to asphalt for a brief time. Purchasing the track in 1976, Mickey Swims
changed the track back to dirt by the 1977 season and never looked back. Now in its 40th year, races have run at Dixie every Saturday night from early May to late October.
Woodstock’s legendary Dixie Speedway celebrating its 40th Anniversary
BY BRANDON MICHEA
sports@ledgernews.com
Less than a decade into its existence,
Dixie Speedway was in trouble.
Running on asphalt, the number of participants
was down, the crowds were not
turning out and the track was losing money.
Then came Mickey Swims.
Purchasing the track from founders
Max and Bob Simpson in June of 1976, the
Cherokee County native and owner of
Rome Speedway needed only the rest of the
’76 season to realize what needed to be done.
“I thought I could pick it up and I did
everything I could,” Swims recalled. “I
worked day and night. I advertised on
everything I could buy, but I lost a good bit
of money that first year and told myself
that it just wasn’t going to work as it was.”
So up came what Swims estimates was,
at that time, $150,000 to $200,000 worth of
asphalt, and in its place, brick clay
brought down from Rome.
“It was a big decision to make, to take up
all that asphalt and not knowing what the
business was going to do,” he said. “But
I knew what I was doing in Rome was
working and knew that I had drivers up
there that would come on with me here if
I went to dirt.”
And the rest, as they say, is history, with
the track celebrating its 40th anniversary
with a full racing program and demolition
derby, Saturday at 7 p.m.
“I never envisioned that dirt track racing
would be where it’s at today – the quality
it is and the caliber drivers we have
coming in,” Swims said. “If you would
have asked me a few months ago what I felt
like racing would be this year, I would have
said with the economy the way it is and the
times the way they are, I would have
believed that we would have a lean year.”
But on the contrary, Dixie hosted 138
drivers for its week 2 slate, May 9, keeping
on pace with turnouts of the past.
In celebration of the 40th season, Dixie’s
grandstand ticket prices have been
reduced 25 percent to $10, a cost Swims
says might remain come June if the fans
continue to turn out as they already have.
“I’d rather have a good crowd at $10 a
head than have a 60 percent crowd at the
regular price,” he said, “and I don’ think
there’s anywhere you can go and get
5 hours of entertainment for $10.”
And in terms of racing, Swims doesn’t
think it gets better than the product
Dixie offers.
“I love all racing, but dirt track racing
isn’t strategy like you’re NASCAR racing
is,” said Swims, who has welcomed such
drivers on his track as Bill Elliot, Dale
Earnhardt, Sr., Richard Petty, Tony
Stewart, Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin,
to name of a few. “It’s wide open from the
time they drop the green flag until the last
lap running... Sometimes they’re running
three and four deep at 120, 130 mph and
there’s a lot of excitement. And while
nobody wants to see these drivers get
hurt, but everybody likes to see them rub a
little bit, that’s just normal dirt-track
racing – that’s the way I like it. That’s the
way I think it ought to be.
“Racing has changing a lot with what
they call the ‘car of tomorrow’ and
sponsorships and the politics, and I just
rather be with good old grassroots, dirt
track racing. It’s just a way of life.”
No Regrets
Coming out of the service and still, as
he recalled, “wet behind the ears,” a
28-year-old Mickey Swims was offered the
opportunity to join his older brother Ed
in the apartment construction business
in Buckhead.
“He said he wanted to put me in the
building business where I could make a
million dollars a year,” Mickey said of his
brother’s offer. “I told him that I didn’t
want to do that, that wanted to own a racetrack;
and he told me that one day I would
come back to him and tell him how sorry I
was for not taking him up on his offer.”
Mickey went on to purchase Rome and
Dixie speedways and added the West
Atlanta Raceway in Douglasville, running
races Friday through Sunday nights.
“We ran 90 shows a year,” he said. “But
it gave me hernia and ulcers and everything
else.”
So Swims sold off the Douglasville track
and stayed with Dixie and Rome, running
Saturday nights in Woodstock and Sunday
SEE DIXIE, PAGE 24