Tri-County Racetrack will reopen in 2024, with a full season planned. Phil Evans, longtime friend of the late owner of the track, Jack Wimpey, has leased the Brasstown, North Carolina, dirt oval, with plans for a full schedule of racing beginning in May.
Evans and his wife, Connie, reached an agreement with the heirs of Jack Wimpey — daughters Jann, Nan, and Sheila — allowing him to present a complete season of racing. The track will remain for sale. The Evans have a year-to-year lease.
“We got TCR for the season, even if it sells a month into it this year, or any other year, we will get to finish the season,” Evans said. “The Wimpey family has agreed to improve the facility, redoing the restrooms, concession stands, and refurbishing the bleachers. The track surface itself is very good, the facility just needs paint and a touch-up.”
Evans is no stranger to Tri-County Racetrack. He promoted it before with Jack Wimpey, starting in 2001.
“We completely rebuilt the track, putting the pits outside of the oval, improving the facility,” said Evans. “We were doing great until January 2006, when everything in my life changed.”
Evans was driving to work when his vehicle was hit head-on in a five-car highway wreck. It’s a memory that he finds hard to mention.
“It messed me up pretty bad,” Evans said. “I had to step back for quite a while. When Jack passed, Jack’s girls asked us if we would be interested in running the track.”
Sheila Grandstaff (née Wimpey), executor of her father’s estate, said it would be her father’s wish to see Evans at the helm of his beloved racetrack.
“They ran the track together all those years ago,” said Grandstaff. “Phil and Connie were very close friends of our father. We wanted someone who had knowledge of running a racetrack — what better person than Phil, who actually ran our racetrack?”
Evans said the rules package at Tri-County Racetrack will mirror those run at nearby Sugar Creek Raceway in Blue Ridge, Georgia. The weekly program will consist of late models/limited late models, 602 late models, street stocks, open wheel modifieds and front-wheel-drives. No date has been set yet for the season opener.
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Corrected the weekly classes expected for 2024, removed quote that implied a Memorial Day opening date (2024-01-25).
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
