Chronology

Search and filters

Entries

1. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

2. 1947–1968
   Storyline · 35 events · Hillsborough Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough

   Bill France and four partners chartered a company in September 1947 to build a one-mile dirt oval by the old Occoneechee Farm, and it opened in June 1948. The track held a race in NASCAR's first Strictly Stock season in 1949, was renamed Orange Speedway in 1954, and closed after Richard Petty won its last race on September 15, 1968.

3. January 27, 1948
   Property or economic transaction · Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough Hillsboro Speedway, Inc. buys the Occoneechee Farm racetrack tract

   W. S. Murchison and J. R. Rogers sold two hundred acres of the old Occoneechee Farm, including its horse track, to Hillsboro Speedway, Inc., the company Bill France and four partners had chartered to build a stock car track. France had spotted the track while flying over Orange County.

4. September 19, 1948
   Competition or sporting achievement · Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough Fonty Flock wins both races of the Occoneechee double-header

   Fonty Flock, who had won the speedway's opening race in June, won both feature events of the double-header at Occoneechee Speedway, the track's second and third races.

5. August 13, 1950
   Competition or sporting achievement · Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough Fireball Roberts wins his first NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee

   Twenty-one-year-old Fireball Roberts of Daytona Beach won the 100-lap Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway, his first victory in NASCAR's top series, in only his third start. Curtis Turner led the first 45 laps before a flat tire and finished second; Louise Smith drove a new Nash Ambassador in the field.

6. October 29, 1950
   Competition or sporting achievement · Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough Lee Petty wins the 1950 season finale as Bill Rexford clinches the title

   Lee Petty of Greensboro won the 200-mile race that closed NASCAR's 1950 Grand National season at Occoneechee Speedway, his first win at the track. Bill Rexford dropped out with engine trouble but took the championship when Fireball Roberts also failed to finish.

7. July 25, 1952
   Property or economic transaction · Orange Speedway (Occoneechee Speedway), Hillsborough Orange Speedway, Inc. takes over the Hillsborough track

   Bill France Sr. became president of the new Orange Speedway, Inc., with Ann France as secretary-treasurer and Enoch Staley as vice-president; the other three original partners were no longer with the track. It was known as Orange Speedway from 1954.

8. April 1956
   Publication, speech or performance · Hillsboro Presbyterian Church, Hillsborough Hillsboro Presbyterian pastor preaches against local stock car racing

   The Rev. C. H. Reckard, pastor of the Hillsboro Presbyterian Church, delivered a sermon criticizing local stock car racing and its effect on young people, one of the clergy protests against Sunday races at Orange Speedway.

9. May 8, 1957
   Law, policy or court · Orange Speedway (Occoneechee Speedway), Hillsborough The General Assembly bans Sunday racing in Orange County

   After protests by the Rev. C. H. Reckard and other Orange County clergy, the legislature passed Senator Edwin S. Lanier's bill banning racing in the county on Sundays, with Rep. John W. Umstead's amendment barring races after 6 p.m. on other days. The bill passed on May 8, 1957, though Sunday races were being advertised again at Orange Speedway by 1961.

10. September 15, 1968
    Closing or ending · Hillsborough Final race at Orange Speedway

    Richard Petty won by seven laps in the last NASCAR Grand National race at Orange Speedway near Hillsborough, as the Occoneechee track had been called since 1954. The track closed after the race.

11. Recent decades · 1976–2026

12. May 19, 1984
    Closing or ending · Orange Speedway (Occoneechee Speedway), Hillsborough Orange Speedway, Inc. is dissolved

    The three shareholders of Orange Speedway, Inc., Ann and Bill France and Enoch Staley, voluntarily dissolved the corporation sixteen years after the last race. France Staley, LLC, which held title to the track, sold it to Preservation North Carolina in 1997.

13. November 25, 1997
    Property or economic transaction · Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough Jenrette's preservation trust buys the Occoneechee Speedway site

    Preservation North Carolina, which had bought the old speedway from France Staley, LLC in June 1997, sold it to the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust under protective deed restrictions.

Suggest a correction to an entry →

A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →

Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.