Union Hill Raceway/Music City Raceway (Goodlettsville)

History

Brothers Bob and Herman Wingo built this strip on their own land, and it opened on July 4, 1958, as Union Hill Raceway. At first it was a dirt track with some bleachers along the side and a judge’s stand. Bob remembered being as nervous as a burglar before the opener, and neither brother slept the night before. Herman recalled about 50 cars and even fewer people that first day, followed by three weeks of rain that didn’t help. Word spread, though, and racers and fans started coming. For 1959 the brothers added lights and paved the strip and part of the shutdown area, and attendance that season was about 25,000. They built new safety and retaining walls before 1960, and by 1961 they had paved the return road and the rest of the shutdown.

The turning point came in 1961, when they brought in a big name, Connie Kalitta, twice and drew capacity crowds. Pete Robinson, Don Garlits and Walt Arfons helped draw 35,000 fans in 1962. Four big super stock meets pushed 1963 attendance to 50,000, with racers such as Don Nicholson, Steve Bonner and Jack Sharkey and an appearance by stock car driver Fireball Roberts. In 1964 the brothers added a large L-shaped swimming pool and a dance pavilion, turning the track into a destination resort. One old-time racer remembered flag starts, hash-mark handicapping, a 3/16-mile distance for the slower classes and an eighth-mile for faster ones, and a short downhill braking area. He said the track went to eighth-mile only around the late ’60s. He saw Garlits race Pete Robinson there in Swamp Rat III, and big crowds at the funny car meets, when the old altered-wheelbase cars burned through the rosin and stood on their back wheels. He was also there when Hunter’s altered ran off the end and wound up crumpled in the woods at the end of a path of flattened trees, and he said it was a wonder Hunter survived. The track’s only fatal accident came on July 10, 1966, when John Donilson was killed after Paul Lance’s car rear-ended his at about 110 MPH.

In 1971 the Wingos sold the strip to Union Hill Properties, Inc., which renamed it Union Hill International Raceway, dropped Sunday racing for Friday and Saturday nights and ran it under NHRA sanction with Ronnie Davis as manager. Doug Greenfield managed it in the 1970s, when races were on Saturday nights. The track was completely renovated in 2007 and now runs grudge racing two weeknights and a regular Saturday program under IHRA sanction.