Jim McLaurin

The rapid-fire delivery of the pitchmen was always the same. Crackling along with the static, snatches of phrases would filter through the raido.

“Sunnnday!” they’d exclaim. Or, “Saturday-night-at-the-Blaney-Drag-Strip,” they’d say in a gravelly, non-stop delivery, “The world’s fastest quarter-mile racers go head to head thiss Saturday night at the Blaney Drag Strip! Sox and Martin, Dyno Don Nicholson, ‘Biig Daddy’ Don Garlits, ‘Tee-Vee’ Thommy Ivo …”

The names that rattle off the radio over the years now sound like a Who’s Who of drag racing.

“I guess about everybody who was anybody in drag racing has raced there at one time or another,” Sandra Smith was saying. “Garlits, Hubert Platt, Shirley Muldowney, back before anybody even knew who she was. It was really a roll call of national champions.”

And now, after 23 years at Blaney, the roll call will be heard no more.

When the big-engined Pro Stockers line up and the hundred or so bracket racers square off for this Saturday’s eliminations, it will be the end of an era. After Saturday Night, Blaney Drag Strip will close it gates for good.

Land is for houses, not dragstrips

Mrs. Smith and her husband Ed Smith, owned the property off U. S. 1 near Elgin that houses the present strip. For the first 13 years of its existence, the couple ran the day-to-day activities of one of the Southeast’s most popular drag racing facilities.

They leased the strip to Columbian Johnny Dowey when the daily operation began to cut too heavily into the time allotted for their other businesses, and Dowey has operated it successfully ever since.

It’s just that, like many other land parcels that were leased for other purposes 10 years ago, the property has become more valuable as real estate.

“My ten-year lease runs out this year,” Dowey said yesterday, “and they decided a couple of years ago that the land had more value to them cut up into lots than the amount I could afford to pay for the lease.

“There’s no hard feelings, or anything,” he said. “I was thinking about buying the land an couple of years ago, but I just waited too long. I could probably have bough it back then, but it is just too valuable now to make it worth my while.”

The current drag strip is actually the second to be built under the name. The first was a couple of miles away on the 325-acre tract that the Smith’s owned. In 1967, rather than extend the shutdown area at the end of the strip to keep their NHRA sanction, they decided to build a new strip with a three-quarter mile stopping stretch somewhere else on the property.

The old strip is now the main street of Tall Pines, a housing subdivision, and the new one will become a part of a development called Blaney Hills.

“My husband did it as a hobby,” Mrs. Smith said. “back in the early ’60s. We owned the road construction equipment and the real estate, and drag racing was a growing sport, so we saw it as a business opportunity and a change to have some fun.

“We did very well at it, but it was such a time-consuming venture. Johnny, who was always a racer out there, found out that we were considering leasing the dragstrip. We had several offers, but he made us the best one.”

‘One the fans will remember’

So Dowey, who first raced there in a ’55 Chevy for “25 bucks some weeks, and a little trophy,” will be gathering in the big names and the specialty acts for one final round of eliminations.

In addition to the 150 sportsman “hobby” racers that are at the heart of any drag racing production, Dowey has added some of the names that have made drag racing history.

The Mountain Motor Pro Stock show, a loosely-organized group that includes Rickie Smith, Roy Hill and Harold Denton, among others, will be there. A jet-powered truck will make exhibition runs; Roger Gustin’s jet funny car will race Todd Mack’s conventional piston driven machine.

“Since this will be the last one, I wanted to make it a good one,” Dowey said. “One the fans will remember.”

Those radio guys always ended their 15-second spots with the admonition, “Beeee There!”

If you’re into end-of-an-era happenings, it might not be a bad idea.

Jim McLaurin is a sports writer for The Columbia Record.