by Dean Poling
August 08, 2007 09:33 am
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Shad Dean isn’t surprised that South Georgia Motorsports Park is a success. He is just surprised that it has become a success so quickly.
“We knew it would happen but didn’t see it happening this early,” says Dean, who is the race track’s general manager.
Though the track’s season opened in March, the track is in use 365 days a year, even Christmas, Dean says, with everything from DEI, RCR, Michael Waltrip Racing, and Evernham using the track to prepare for their seasons.
The South Georgia Motorsports Park season opened with the Third Annual Prostar Bike Week Nationals. Drag-racing returned last month kicking off with the Eastern Spring Test Nationals, as well as the Hooters Pro Cup.
Lucas Oil Drag Racing fills part of the raceway’s calendar this month, along with a Friday Night Bike Night, the SGMP Test and Tune, and more.
There is plenty of racing available on both the dragway and the speedway.
The park has come a long way since hosting an open house just three years ago. But even that proved an indication of things to come. Without even hosting a race and construction continuing in March 2004, more than 1,000 visitors came to the park.
That initial 1,000 and thousands more have been coming ever since.
Given the regular attendance and the size of those crowds, it begs to ask, if they wished they had built an even larger facility?
“No, no,” Shad Dean says. “We’re trying to equalize everything out and maintain what we’ve got.”
Cook County has come to enjoy the good thing it has in South Georgia Motorsports Park. In 2006, Kerry Waldron, Cook County economic developer, reported that Cook experienced a $1.1 million economic impact just from the raceway’s Hooters Pro Cup weekend.
Dean says the park has developed a good relationship with Cook County. This month, as Cook County is scheduled to host an international economic-development group, the raceway will host the group giving them a taste of American racing.
South Georgia Motorsports Park is one more stop in making the region a destination for tourists.
South Georgia Motorsports Park is located one mile north of Cecil, Georgia on Highway 41, just off Interstate 75 at Exit 32, SGMP features one of only two all-concrete quarter-mile drag strips in North America in addition to the D-shaped, progressive banked oval track.
Additional information and event schedules are available on the track’s official website, www.sgmpracing.com.
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