Pine Knob Drag Strip (Dickson)

One old-timer said local enthusiasts built this strip in 1962, before The Super opened near Dickson. Pine Knob sat an eighth-mile off Highway 70 between Montgomery Bell Park and Dickson, and newspapers put it two to three miles east of town. It was a low-budget operation put together with help from a few generous local businesses. It ran a full quarter-mile but wasn’t paved for its first two years. The surface was hard Benton County chert, with a 150-foot concrete pad at the starting line. He blamed its end on young management, a lack of what it took to be a serious track, and The Super opening only 10 miles away just as I-40 made that track easier to reach. He thought 1964 was the last season. He was the classifier in 1962 and 1963 before leaving for basic training, and said he learned a lot and had a great time. Plenty of low-budget racers came from Nashville and around. He recalled Mr. Milton of Milton Thomas Garage, a colorful, dedicated racer whose whole family came along with a picnic lunch. Mr. Milton was Black, and the old-timer said the racers didn’t care about the civil rights troubles of the day, because he was a racer like the rest of them. The strip is still there at the edge of a subdivision, all grown over.