Facility renamed, will open

within the next six months

Staff Writer

More than four years after ground was broken,a Union County drag strip has a new owner, with plans to complete the facility and open it this year.

Greer businessman Curtis Teems has purchased the Broad River Dragway and renamed it the Union County Motorsports Park. He plans to finish construction and open it for racing and related activities within the next six months.

When completed, the park will be a 1/4-mile facility with a track 60 feet wide and 3,500 feet long. The first 800 feet of racing surface will be concrete and the rest asphalt.The park, which will be open from February through November, will be able to accommodate every form of drag racing on a weekly basis, according to Mike Petrie, president of the Union County Motorsports Association.

“We expect this to be one of the premier facilities in the area,” he said.

While most racing will be run on a 1/8-mile format, there will be some specialty events run on a 1/4-mile format, Petrie said. Professional race teams will also be able to rent the track for testing purposes.

A Gastonia, N.C., firm originally planned to build the dragway and broke ground in 2004, despite opposition from local residents who went to court to try to stop it. A judge refused to grant an injunction against the dragway, but work eventually came to a halt anyway due to financial problems.

Since then, Petrie said, the motorsports association has sought investors to purchase the 120-acre site and complete the dragway. Petrie said the association eventually made contact with Teems and worked with him for the last 18 months.

Teems, who has been involved in racing since he was a teen-ager, is the owner of the Harris Speedway in Harris, N.C., and the former owner of the Riverside Speedway. He said he became interested in acquiring, completing and operating the Santuc dragway after being contacted by Petrie.

“He told me they were building a drag strip in Union and they were having a little problem getting it finished; they'd been working on this project about four years,” he said. “So we got to talking and then we got to looking for land and finally they came back and said they would sell and two or three weeks later they said they wouldn't sell and then they finally said ‘Okay, we're going to sell' so I bought it last week.”

Another factor in his decision was the support motorsports receives locally. While Union is a small county, Teems said, it gives more support to motorsports than any other county he's been in.

The motorsports association supports severalracing facilities and activities including the Union County Speedway (formerly Buffalo Speedway); GNCC Big Buck cross country motorcycle and ATV race; the Little Brown Jug Hare Scramble motorcycle races; Revolution Park motocross facility; and Cross Anchor Raceway, just inside Spartanburg County. Last year, Union County was selected as the American base of the Team Aruba drag racing team.

Teems said it will probably cost about a million dollars just to complete the drag strip. He said he didn't know how many jobs will be generated, but at his dirt track some 35-40 people are employed each Saturday night and he expects similar numbers here.

Local officials welcomed Monday's announcement with Union Mayor Bruce Morgan pointing out that the facility will attract tourists and promote economic development in the county.

“We're excited about it; we think it will bring economic development, tourism and additional investment to Union,” he said. “We're excited any time that we can create that kind of atmosphere. Drag racing is big business and we think this facility at least several times a year will bring thousands of people to Union that wouldn't be here otherwise. So any time you create that situation that's an economic development tool that we intend to use.

“So we're very proud of Curtis Teems and his family making this investment here,” he said. “He certainly knows the racing business and he will complete this facility and do it first class and that's what we want.”

Dr. Hugh Rowland, dean of USC-Union and president of the Union County Chamber of Commerce, pointed out that the dragway could also help attract students to the university.

“People coming to events such as this will see Union County, they will see Union City, they'll also see the university,”he said. “For many people they're not going to be familiar with the university, it's going to be the first time and they'll go ‘Wow, this town has a university in it.'

“Beyond that, this generation of students quite often is looking for things that are quite different from the traditional types of things that college students have thought of,” he said. “Many of the students going to college today they've been doing ATV racing, they've been doing motorcross racing, they've been doing a variety of things that traditional students didn't do. Interestingly enough some college students are seeking out institutions that are in close proximity to these types of facilities. So we view it as a win-win for Union County, a win-win for the City of Union and a win-win for the university. “