Shadyside Drag Strip/Dragway
ActiveActive Still racing today.
An outlaw-style eighth-mile strip in rural Shelby that opened in 1958 and has been owned by the Buff family since 1980. It is best known for the big-money Ronnie Buff Memorial small-tire race and Southeast Gassers nostalgia events.
- The first of three dirt strips that ran within four miles of each other in the early 1960s
- Raced
- ca. 1960-present
- State
- North Carolina
- Raced on
- Built as a drag strip
- Track
- 1/8 mile
- Surface
- Dirt, paved by 1967, concrete today
- Address
- Shelby, NC
- People
- Marshall Hamrick, owner (early 1960s)
- Sanction
- IHRA
- Elevation
- 743 ft (226 m)
- Coordinates
- 35.21709, -81.64568
Big races
Ronnie Buff Memorial / King of the South
The track's signature race, named for the late owner Ronnie Buff, built around the King of the South small-tire invitational with a payout that has reached $50,000 to $75,000 to win.
Southeast Gassers Association races
Shadyside was the only track to host two SEGA championship rounds in 2026, opening and closing the gasser series season.
Carolina Drag Cruise
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
Southeast Street-N-Yeet
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
Southeast Street-N-Yeet Fall
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
Southeast Street-N-Yeet Spring
A drag-and-drive: racers drive their street cars from track to track over several days and race at each stop.
History
Racer Walt McIntyre is the main source on this strip’s early years. Marshall Hamrick owned Shadyside, the first of three dirt strips that ran at the same time within four miles of each other. The Hunt family’s Sandy Run opened about three miles west, and Hilltop about a mile beyond that on the same road. McIntyre figured the newcomers had seen Hamrick’s success and hoped to cash in, since dirt strips were cheap to build. A flagman started the races, and a man at each side of the finish raised a flag for the winner. Sandy Run ran from 1960 to about 1966, and Hilltop only a couple of years. The tracks all raced Sunday afternoons until Sandy Run hung lights along its strip and switched to Saturday nights with good results. McIntyre, Butch Green, Johnny White, Bobby Barr, Ed Price, Alfred Price, Hotdog Price, Robert Davis, Pete Black, Garland Buff and Jim Bridges were among the regulars. When McIntyre and Green went looking years later, Sandy Run’s owner said it had grown over, and Hilltop had changed so much they couldn’t see any trace of a strip.
Another racer passed along a story he’d heard. A driver in a ‘66 or ‘67 Chevelle was parked behind the tower during a fight on the return road while the track called for him to run the final or be disqualified. He drove through the crowd into the water box. A man angry about it yanked his door open, and the driver, who kept a loaded .38 by the seat, shot the man’s ear off, shut the door and made his run.
In the early 1960s cars raced southeast, the opposite direction from today. The track was paved by at least 1967 but had no guardrail. It now runs as an all-concrete eighth-mile.
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