The Myrtle Beach Speedway Gears Up with Music and Racing-Related Events

If they hear it, they will come.

And you can hear it – the unmistakable throaty drone of stock cars as drivers make laps around the track at the Myrtle Beach Speedway – tucked into a 48-acre spread on Hospitality Lane, behind the Tanger Outlets off U.S. 501.

This might come as a surprise to some, but the Myrtle Beach Speedway has been around for nearly 60 years and was the home of the Myrtle Beach 250, a NASCAR Busch Series [now the Xfinity Series] race, from 1988-2000.

Legendary NASCAR names like Petty and Earnhardt have either practiced or raced here across generations – and Jeff Gordon raced his Bill Davis-owned Baby Ruth Ford here in 1992. Earnhardt, Jr. had his very first NASCAR win here in 1996.

When CEO Bob Lutz and partners purchased the speedway in 2012, it also became the local home for the NASCAR Racing Experience, where folks have the opportunity to drive NASCAR race cars – or ride along with a seasoned professional driver.

Regular racing events include the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series [formerly the Winston Racing Series], Charger Series, Vintage, Super Trucks and Mini Series.

But lately, you can hear more than high-performance engines.

The venue is quickly gaining a reputation for bringing in top-notch recording artists and performers across multiple genres.

In 2014, Southern California rockers Buckcherry christened the then brand new stage in the amphitheater section of the venue during the 2014 Spring Harley-Davidson Rally. Travis Tritt, Charlie Daniels Band and The Outlaws appeared the following year.

The stage area was built by track employees exclusively – after removing a section of the track’s bleachers, opening up lawn seating space for roughly 4000 concertgoers.

And the musical lineup this year has been varied. With the arrival of the Horry County Fair at the Speedway for the first time last April came country juggernauts Trace Adkins and Montgomery Gentry as well as 80s stalwart Huey Lewis and the News – followed in May by 3 Doors Down, creators of the 2000 monster single, “Kryptonite.”

And it doesn’t stop there. In fact, the Summer Concert Series at the Myrtle Beach Speedway it just heating up, as evidenced by the appearance of the Summerland Tour tomorrow night – an impressive alt-rock lineup featuring Sugar Ray, Everclear, Lit and Sponge.

Did we mention that Rick Springfield, The Romantics and Night Ranger will perform on August 27? Now we did.

THE TRACK FAMILY

The Myrtle Beach Speedway was built in 1958 and was originally called the Rambi Raceway. It has been here all of this time, right in our own back yard.

Myrtle Beach Speedway sales and marketing professional Jill Vielhauer considers herself the track’s treasure hunter, and has discovered many photographs and other ephemera from the property’s long and rich history.

“When it opened, the track was originally dirt, then it was paved into asphalt, paved into dirt again – and now it’s asphalt again,” adding that the half-mile [0.538 miles], semi-banked track it is known in racing circles to be one of the worst on tires.

Vielhauer, 30, moved here 10 years ago, and being a part of the Myrtle Beach Speedway is a good fit for her.

“I love racing,” she said. “I think to work here you have to have an underlying love for the Myrtle Beach Speedway. We all have this connection to this place. It’s hot and it’s tough – but it’s something we really, really love.”

She is referring to the core group of employees there, including GM Steve Zacharias, Brian Vause [racing operations], director of operations Craig Johnson and Willie Grainger, who works primarily as a driver for the NASCAR Racing Experience.

“We all want to see it succeed. There is so much opportunity here, and you have to be able to see it, love it and work this hard to get it there.”

This starts with the NASCAR Racing Experience.

“We all come in daily to do that, and when it gets done at three, then it’s everything else.”

Everything else lately includes getting it together for the weekly racing events as well as Mustang Days, the Wheels of Destruction Thrill Show, and a three-day event called the NOPI Nationals.

“NOPI [Number One Parts, Inc.] is an elite car show, but it also brings entertainment, girls and vendors,” she said. Our March event was a blowout, and now July is the finals [July 29-31] – and it’s going to be crazy.”

She told The Surge that more 1,000 trucks also showed up for the event in March.

“A lot of self-contained NOPI stuff is in the infield. They register the cars or trucks, they get voted on and they get prize money,” she said.

We suspect there are people out there who don’t know about the track – or have vaguely heard that folks can drive a NASCAR race car in Myrtle Beach but are not quite sure about the details.

The Myrtle Beach Speedway family is working to change that.

“It’s sad to me that some people don’t know we’re here. It’s especially crazy for these guys who race here on Saturdays. This is our home and our heart right here – and sometimes we will just run the race cars because when people hear it, they will come.”

She said that the grandstands were full back in the day when the Busch Series ran here.

“We’re trying to get back to that,” she said.

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?

Think you have what it takes to drive a race car?

Vause, who also races late models in the Whelen Series, laid everything out for us.

“The NASCAR Racing Experience is the authentic racing experience for the average Joe to get in a stock car and drive around for a couple of laps,” he said, adding that you don’t need to follow anyone around.

“The driver is out there by themselves, and we’ve got two-way communications like you see on TV. The driver wears ear buds and we’re talking to you, coaching you through it on the radio.”

If driving isn’t your thing but you still want the adrenaline rush, perhaps a ride-along will do the trick.

“We also offer a three-lap ride-along, where you ride with a professional driver [at this track it’s Vause, Grainger and Zacharias, who all have professional racing experience]. You are riding in a stock car that was driven by some of the former stars [Earnhardt, Jr., Greg Biffle, Michael Waltrip] and actually run by those guys in the 2003-2004 era.”

Vause himself grew up around the Myrtle Beach Speedway because of his grandfather, who always owned a car that was involved in the races there.

“When I turned 21, my granddad didn’t have a driver for the car at the time, so he said, ‘hey – you want to hop in and cut some laps?’ I never really thought about driving.

He snagged a top-five ranking in his first race, and six years on, he is currently driving for Richard Burgess out of Loris.

“We are in contention to win a track championship. It’s a pretty big deal for us,” he said.

Grainger has been racing at the track since 1988, currently in the support divisions like the Charger Series, Super Truck, and vintage cars, but he said that is about to change.

“I can’t let him have all the fun.” He said of Vause.

FACING THE MUSIC

Vause has been on board as an employee since Lutz and the group bought the property in 2012, and he sees the music component as another way to attract people to the track.

“We are doing the concerts and the car shows – we’ve got Monster Jam and the Horry County Fair. It’s a lot of stuff to offer to a diverse group because there is so much to do in Myrtle Beach and the competition is high,” he said.

An interesting point is that the stage and amphitheater area was constructed solely by track employees in 2014.

“It was hand built by everybody that’s here, and we put it up in a couple of weeks. Buckcherry was the first act. We got the permits, completed the stage – and it was all set in stone about two days before the concert. It was a lot of fun and a lot of interesting times doing something that we had never done before.”

And in a nod to the aforementioned diversity in Myrtle Beach – Huey Lewis is different from 3 Doors Down is different from Montgomery Gentry is different from Everclear – and so on.

“We are always experimenting with it. By the same token, we’re trying to get the good acts in here, again, to put Myrtle Beach Speedway out there so more and more people know that it is here.”

Steve Zacharias, general manager of the speeedway, said the business plan calls for flexibility in what the speedway offers, and said speedway officials hope to have something different every month next year.

“There’s so much potential for this place to do whatever it wants,” Zacharias said. “We’re trying to get to the point where we can do anything that we put together a plan for.”

Vause said it is surprising to see people come around who have lived here for decades and had no idea that the track even existed.

“Hopefully, by getting the right artists and the right bands, people will come out here and see the track – and then we can get them back to the track,” he said.

This story was originally published July 11, 2016 at 11:57 AM with the headline "The Myrtle Beach Speedway Gears Up with Music and Racing-Related Events."