In March, Chesterfield County announced a 20-year deal to revive racing at Southside Speedway. (Photo by Christopher Kendall courtesy Competitive Racing Investments)
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 Southside Speedway season, the owners shuttered the doors in December of that year. Many people were certain the last laps had been run at the 0.333-mile track in Midlothian. Lin O’Neill was never one of them.
O'Neill, a race team owner at the track, launched Save Southside Speedway after the Chesterfield Economic Development Authority purchased the land in 2021 for $4.5 million and mulled various plans for the property, including some that did not involve stock car racing, which was first held at the site in 1959.
The organization collected signatures and lobbied Chesterfield County to find a solution that brought the track back online.
“I figured I’d get about 500 signatures,” O’Neill says. “When it went to 21,000, I thought, ‘This means something to a whole lot of people.’”
On March 11, county leaders announced a 20-year lease-to-purchase agreement for the speedway grounds with investor group Competitive Racing Investments, led by O’Neill and his former on-track rival Jeff Oakley.
In the lease terms, Competitive Racing Investments will pay $1 million for the first five years. From the sixth year on, the group will pay in monthly installments another $5.9 million over 20 years. O’Neill and Oakley intend to have the track operational as soon as possible: 2027 at the latest, with an eye on 2026.
“People were pushing me, saying, ‘Just build a racetrack in Amelia [County] or something,’” O’Neill recalls. “I said, ‘I’m not even interested.’ This is where my heroes raced, this is where I raced, and this is where I want my grandkids to race.”
‘A Big Family Deal’
Bret Hamilton, who raced at Southside Speedway in the 1980s and 1990s, has been building race cars for most of his life. His company, Bret Hamilton Enterprises, builds late-model, mini, modified and street stock cars, among others.
O’Neill says that all four of these classes of competition will return to Southside Speedway, as will grand stock and “U-Cars,” shorthand for “U Can Afford to Race.”
Hamilton built the first car that NASCAR Cup Series star and Chesterfield native Denny Hamlin raced at Southside Speedway, which was in the mini stock division.
“I’m there every week it’s open,” Hamilton says of the Speedway. “Since this announcement came out, I’ve had guys asking me about prices on new cars.”
Hamilton adds that, though a lot has changed since his rookie year in 1985, the racing community is still close-knit.
“It’s a lot of families involved, a lot of fathers and sons racing together,” Hamilton says. “It’s still a big family deal.”
O’Neill points out that stock car racing is a competition for people of almost any age.
“We don’t age out; we die out,” O’Neill says. “There are guys [who are] 80 years old driving — or if they’re done driving, they’re out there tuning carburetors. And I plan to be one of them.”
According to Hamilton, Friday night races are a highlight of the week for competitors and fans alike.
“Most of the people get along good. They look forward to seeing each other on Friday nights,” Hamilton says. “It’s a competition. You’ll be out there beating and banging on each other during the race, but if someone needs something, you’ll loan it to them.”
Ricky Dennis, who built stock cars for NASCAR Winston Cup drivers in the sport’s heyday and raced at Southside Speedway in the 1980s, says that “guys may race each other, wreck each other, want to fight after the race, then go get breakfast together at a diner the next morning.”
Lin O’Neill led Save Southside Speedway and has a vision to keep stock car racing in Midlothian for good. (Photo by Ash Daniel)
More Than Racing
Dennis, who ran a successful race car-building business for 19 years, says there was a hole in Southside Speedway’s profit model before 2020: namely, the lack of other events.
“It was open 21 days a year. Look, you’ve got concession stands, grandstands, bathrooms and parking lots. You need to use that thing,” he says. “Hopefully, there’s going to be a lot more events going on besides racing.”
O’Neill can confirm: “I’ve got a list of 286 potential events,” he says. “Everything from a car show to a carnival to a rodeo. You name it.”
Though attendance and television ratings for the NASCAR Cup Series have dropped precipitously since peaking two decades ago, O’Neill says that fans still have an appetite for stock car racing. In fact, he notes, Southside Speedway can provide the atmosphere that made NASCAR great without the gimmickry that has marked its decline.
“No political mess, no mandatory caution flags to bunch the field up,” O’Neill says. “Just good, hard racing.”
To reel old-school race fans back in, the Cup Series has paid visits in recent years to classic short tracks including North Wilkesboro Speedway and Bowman Gray Stadium in North Carolina. Southside Speedway fell off the cup circuit in 1963.
While bringing back a cup race is probably not realistic in the short term, O’Neill has his sights set on attracting cup veterans like Dale Earnhardt Jr., who retired from the Cup Series in 2017 but frequently runs short track races in the Southeast on the CARS Late Model Stock tour.
Even after his retirement, Earnhardt is one of the biggest names in stock car racing. Driving the No. 8 he made famous 25 years ago, he can still pack a racetrack. To prepare Southside Speedway for an event of that caliber, Competitive Racing Investments has its work cut out for itself, including a total revamp of the grandstands.
“My goal is to seat 15,000 people,” O’Neill says. “Bowman Gray seats 17,000, and we’re in a much bigger area.” The previous capacity was around 6,000.
Other projects O’Neill envisions include LED lighting around the racetrack and a program to get Chesterfield Career and Technical Center students working in race shops.
“This track is going to be such an asset to the county,” he says. “People look at me like I’m crazy, but they looked at me when I was crazy when I said, ‘Save Southside Speedway,’ so I’ve got some goals.”
