Palmetto Drag Strip (Pelion)

This 4,500-foot quarter-mile strip was on a 300-acre site in the hamlet of Pelion, thirteen miles south of Columbia on Highway 215. Old-timers remember the races at the airport just north of Pelion, now Lexington County Airport, and since the airport didn’t open until 1974, the strip must have come first. On November 21, 1959, Bondy Long of Camden set a track record at the new strip with a 141.95 MPH run in his “Snoopy” dragster. The Thanksgiving Day race had 34 classes, powder puff racing and a turkey scramble, with six turkeys turned loose for the drivers to catch. In 1960 the Palmetto Racing Affiliates ran races on Saturdays. The track record stood at 147 MPH in May 1960, when Lewis Carden of Birmingham set an elapsed time record of 9.43 seconds. At the NHRA Southeast Division Championships on July 2 and 4, 1960, three national records fell, Hoyt Grimes of Atlanta set a track record of 147.10 MPH, and Cecil Curry of Greenville won top eliminator in his A dragster. One of the national records was a C/GS mark of 106.71 MPH set in a 1940 Ford by a Pete Robinson of Atlanta, possibly the same Pete Robinson who set a record there later. Palmetto held the first South Carolina State Championship drags on October 1, 1960.

Art Malone set a track record of 8.4 seconds at 174 MPH in May 1961. Don Garlits made his third visit on August 5, 1961, and called it a great strip. In 1964 ads offered the strip for sale as one of the finest around and a good deal for the right party. On May 13, 1967, “Sneaky” Pete Robinson set a national speed record of 218.44 MPH in 6.97 seconds at a NASCAR-sanctioned race there. The track hosted the IHRA Dixie Drags in May 1971. Racing ended that year when the strip was held to be breaking the blue laws by racing on Sundays. Lexington County legislators sought an exemption, but the governor vetoed it. In late October 1972 a light plane carrying more than 450 pounds of marijuana landed on the strip, and authorities broke up the smuggling attempt.