Atlanta International Dragway (Commerce)

The track opened with the three-day, $200,000 IHRA Dixie Nationals on May 21-23, 1976, and 40,000 people watched Sunday’s final eliminations. In the top fuel semifinals Don Garlits ran 6.06 seconds at 234.98 mph to beat Pat Dakin for top time of the meet, then beat Paul Longenecker in the final. Ray Beadle won funny car and Bob Glidden won pro stock. The 30,000-seat track hosted the IHRA Nationals on September 10-12, 1976. On Sunday the engine in Clayton Harris’s top fuel dragster exploded and shrapnel injured ten people in the grandstands. Garlits beat Shirley Muldowney in the top fuel final and set an IHRA record of 5.79 seconds at 241.93 mph. R. C. Sherman won funny car and Glidden took pro stock again.

The track’s own history says Gene Bennett built it in 1975 on land first graded for an airport. The airport tower became the first timing tower, and the track ran the same direction as the unpaved airstrip, which was just Georgia red clay. Norman Pearah bought it in 1980 and made it an NHRA track, open only twice a year for major events back then. Pro stock driver Gary Brown and partners J.D. Stevens and Rudy Bowen bought it in 1987 and rebuilt it with aluminum grandstands, permanent restrooms and new concession buildings. In 1989 it was resurfaced with a concrete launch pad and got a new timing system, and in 1990 a reconditioned VIP tower with a timing deck, press center and corporate suites went up.

NHRA bought the track in 1993. It resurfaced the track and updated the timing in 1999, remodeled the tower restrooms and rewired the concession, tower and ticket buildings, upgraded the FM radio and PA in 2003, added four permanent grandstand sections in 2009, repaved the whole shutdown area in 2010 and moved to fiber-optic timing in 2011. The track was later sold for industrial, residential and commercial development. Its last season was 2021, ending forty years as home of the NHRA Southern Nationals.