Atmore Motorplex

History

Bessie M. Owens, Amelia B. Owens, Robert Owens and Travis Gary filed incorporation papers for Atmore Dragway on November 10, 1975, and the eighth-mile track cost $85,000 to build. Its first big race was an IHRA Winston Cup event on March 28, 1976, where David Beattle of Dallas set the track speed mark at 166 mph in his funny car. The track was resurfaced before Don Nicholson brought his ‘76 Mustang II pro stocker on June 27, 1976. Thirteen IHRA national records fell at the Winston Cup Challenge on August 28-29, 1976.

On September 24-25, 1977, Atmore hosted an IHRA National Title Series race with a $12,000 purse, plus a match race between Don Garlits and Clive Skilton of London, England. The “Firecracker 500” followed on July 2, 1978. In 1982 the strip hosted a couple of outdoor concerts with singers including Lee Greenwood and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Johnny Jordan owned the track in 1991, and it ran under NHRA sanction from 1991 to 1993. Ronnie Conrad bought it, moved it to IHRA in 1994 and replaced the old wooden bleachers with aluminum ones. The track sits on Poarch Creek tribal land. Owner Dona Moore said in 2021 that it went through a major renovation in 2012 and officially reopened in 2013, when the original incorporation passed to Gary and Dona Moore, and that it was NHRA-sanctioned. Gary Moore died in January 2017 and Dona kept running the track. After the 2017 season, the Poarch Creek Tribal Council let the Mobile Dragway owners join with them, bringing in money for $2 million in improvements. Mobile Dragway, open for 25 years, officially closed in December 2017 and moved its operations to Atmore.