In rural NC, racing fans packed a speedway to defy governor in pursuit of ‘freedom’

They lined up more than two hours before the first race Saturday at Ace Speedway, and soon that line stretched 700 feet from the little ticket hut near the front gate all the way to the road. Some of them drank beer while they waited, or smoked cigarettes. They stood close together, without fear of the virus or concern for social distancing.

At the country speedway in the northwest corner of Alamance County, it was as if the coronavirus pandemic was a thing of the past. It was as if the United States wasn’t approaching 100,000 deaths from the virus, and as though much of North Carolina hadn’t been on lockdown just a week or so earlier. It was, amid a global crisis, a scene from life before.

Cars kept pulling into the grassy lot surrounding the racetrack, their arrival creating a mist of dirt and dust in the haze. The sun shined down upon the line. It continued growing longer and hotter, people inching closer to the front where they’d pay $12 to come inside and sit in the grandstand or in a lawn chair somewhere along the fence and watch the cars go by.

They had come from all over the state, said Ernest “Smokey” Bare, who was working the front gate and checking people’s coolers and bags as they came through. They’d come from Charlotte or Goldsboro, from nearby Winston-Salem or Burlington, to watch the race cars speed around an oval four-tenths of a mile long.

They’d come for the spectacle of it, for the familiar things they’d missed: The roar of the engines and the vibration of the ground as cars went by; the faint smell of gasoline. They’d come for more than all of that, and to make something of a stand and a statement that they weren’t afraid.

To many, it wasn’t as much about racing as it was freedom.

Gene Yarboro, who lives in Winston-Salem, had been coming here for years, and while he stood in line he said to no one in particular that he couldn’t ever remember seeing so many people in line for a race night at Ace. It brought him a sense of satisfaction that the turnout had been as strong as it was, a capacity crowd of more than 4,000 by the start of the race.

“They’ve been locked up,” Yarboro, 64, said of the hundreds of people surrounding him while he slowly walked ahead toward the ticket booth. “They want to go somewhere, and this is the only place, really, legal to come around.”

All week, that had been a point of contention — the legality of this gathering. When North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced that the state would enter Phase Two of its gradual reopening amid the pandemic, the news came with limits. Cooper’s executive order, for one, prohibited mass gatherings, and those had been defined as any gathering of more than 10 people indoors, or more than 25 outdoors.

Within about 10 feet on either side of Yarboro, there were more than 25 people. He didn’t mind. Nobody here minded, and whatever concerns anyone had were outweighed by the desire to be a part of the mutual experience. Only a few people wore any kind of coverings over their face and Bare, the man checking the bags at the gate, was among them.

“It’s been years since we had this many people,” he said.

‘I love to see this’

It was as if there’d been a great release, like water rushing out of an unkinked hose. To Yarboro, the state had been shut down long enough. He worried about one of his good friends, who’d just bought a restaurant only to have it close for months amid the virus. Now that friend, Yarboro said, was “going to lose his home, everything’s he got, because of this.”

Throughout the line, there were stories like that, and those stories were part of the reason why people had come out. Up ahead, Jim Chandler and Talmadge Coates, two friends, were among the few who were wearing coverings over their faces. And yet, neither one said they had much use for restrictions limiting gatherings or the reopening of businesses.

“I love to see this,” said Coates, 63. “It’s time to open the country back up, man.”

Chandler, 61, stood next to him and nodded.

“I mean, it’s a little scary,” he said. “But we can’t live under a rock forever.”

They’d arrived here because they like racing. And yet that was only part of it.

“People been cooped up and they’re ready to get out,” Coates said. “I think they need to open this economy back up, too. And let people be smart about what they’re doing. I mean, we’re not dummies.

“And I’m not trying to get all political, and all that,” but then he did, offering his criticism of “these liberals,” as he put it.

“I used to be a Democrat,” Coates said, “but Trump — everything the poor man does, it ain’t enough. You know? And God bless Trump, and God bless America, man. That’s all I can say.”

Soon they were at the ticket booth, and then past “Smokey” Bare and inside the gate. An hour before qualifying for the first race, the main grandstand was nearly full. By the start of that race, the place was packed, spectators wedged into bleachers adorned with American flags that hung in the breeze above the top row of the grandstand.

‘You go forward’

Soon the engines came to life. Drivers took their places. A man with a microphone addressed the people who’d come, and led the crowd in a prayer. During the prayer, he offered praise for Robert Turner, the co-owner of the track who’d fought for fans to be able to attend, and won.

“We pray for our country right now,” the man leading the prayer said. “Our country is headed down a road that only you can bring it back from. Father, show us what you would have us to do. Give us boldness.

“Thank you for allowing Robert to be bold, and to stand up. Not to lay down. When you’re confident in something, you go forward. When you’re scared, you back up. Robert’s not backing up. We thank you for that confidence, Father.”

The people said amen. Moments later, the first race of the night was on.

Spectators stood at the sight of it. Some of them placed their hands over the children’s ears.

Near the fence bordering the track, the noise became deafening. To Jason Turner, Robert’s son and one of the track’s co-owners, it was the sound of victory — the sound of winning a fight to hold this event in front of spectators. The Ace Speedway is one of several like it across North Carolina. It is both a training ground for younger drivers with grand aspirations and a home to older drivers who never quite made it big but still earned a loyal following among locals.

The speedway’s season was supposed to start on March 27. Instead, the pandemic forced the cancellation of its first five race nights. When Cooper announced Phase Two last week, and introduced the executive order limiting mass gatherings, Robert Turner adopted a defiant tone. In an interview with the Burlington Times-News, which regularly covers the speedway’s events, Turner dismissed Cooper’s order and questioned the legality of it.

“I’m going to race, and I’m going to have people in the stands,” Turner told the paper.

Saturday, Jason Turner recounted his father’s meeting earlier in the week with county officials. Those officials granted the Turners permission to allow fans into the speedway. One of those officials, Clyde Albright, the Alamance County Attorney, told the Times-News that Cooper “cannot constitutionally limit the number of people who can peaceably assemble.”

Albright didn’t return a message seeking additional comment Sunday. Jason Turner, meanwhile, praised the county’s leadership for allowing Ace to welcome spectators.

“They did their jobs,” Turner said. “They did what they were supposed to do. I’m very thankful that we have people in Alamance County that are willing to stand up for our constitutional rights (to) peacefully assemble, to gather together and just be amongst ourselves as normal.

“There’s nobody here rioting. We’re not speaking against any kind of thing. We’re here just to have some fun and be Americans. And that’s what we needed. But somebody, at some point in time, had to stand up for these people and for all of us, together.”

To Turner, the fight to hold a race night in front of fans went deeper than simply allowing people to sit in the grandstand. It was more about rights, and freedom, and Turner said that he was “very patriotic about our country, our flag. ... Our military. Our elected officials.”

“Our country, in general,” he said. “And it’s in jeopardy right now. Because of some of the things that are going on. So when we decided to make the comments that we made, we had to take a hard line. That’s the only way to get any results right now.”

‘Nobody is really scared’

He said he received “dirty phone calls” and text messages and “threats on my life” from people who didn’t believe that the speedway should allow fans, as if the virus was no longer a threat. Turner figured that a lot of the blowback had come from “people who probably wouldn’t come to Ace Speedway, anyways.” And besides, the supporters seemed to outnumber the critics.

Midway through the first race, the place was full.

“What this tells me is that nobody is really scared,” he said. “... If you want to take a poll, here, nobody is scared.”

About an hour or so later, Jewell Stewart sat alone at a picnic table behind the bleachers, between the concession stands. She’d come to the speedway with her boyfriend. She is 70, and she was one of the few wearing a mask. At the start of the night, she’d been sitting in the grandstand. Then the space around her became full, strangers sitting nearby.

She started to worry. She made her way to that picnic table, where she read a book and listened to the cars speed by. At first, she hadn’t given much thought to attending a race here. But then she arrived and saw that hardly anyone was wearing a facial covering. And there were all those people sitting around her. It was enough to send Stewart to seek refuge.

“I wasn’t comfortable at that point,” said Stewart, who’s from Lexington. “So I just left, and came out here to sit.”

‘If I were to get this, I wouldn’t make it’

She said her favorite driver is R.D. Smith, who drives the bright green No. 16 in the late model stock car races. That’s always the most popular race of the night. Now, though, Stewart didn’t have much interest in returning to the stands to watch her favorite driver. She felt safer sitting alone, with her book, away from a crowd that was almost inescapable.

She wondered why more people weren’t wearing masks. She worried about her underlying conditions, and what would happen if she ever contracted COVID-19.

“If I were to get this,” Stewart said, “I wouldn’t make it.”

By then the sun had long set and the speedway lights were bright. Spectators remained packed together for that 75-lap late models race. Ty Gibbs, the 17-year-old grandson of Joe Gibbs, the only man to be enshrined in both the NFL and NASCAR halls of fame, pulled away and easily won the marquee event of the night.

Afterward, the younger Gibbs lamented that his grandfather couldn’t be here to see him win.

“I’m sure he’s pretty happy,” he said. “He’s been with my grandma, so I’m sure he wants to get out of the house and come watch. I’m sure she’s driving him crazy.”

Indeed, the quarantine life “was driving me crazy,” Ty Gibbs said, and he sounded glad that a night of racing had inspired people to get out of the house. That was the prevailing mood Saturday: That a gathering of more than 4,000 people wasn’t strange or dangerous amid the pandemic, but that instead it was a necessary step; a sign of life resuming as it should.

“I mean look at this place,” Burt Myers, a veteran driver who was among the most popular competitors here, said after he finished in third place in a 30-lap race. Myers spoke with a smile, his hair matted with sweat, and he couldn’t remember the first race of the season being as warm as it was. Then again, the season always began here in March instead of May.

The sight of a full grandstand did not feel odd to Myers, despite the times. No, he said, what felt strange was watching these NASCAR races, like Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 in Concord, go on without fans. That was abnormal. Not this, even amid everything going on in the world. Myers said he had to “be careful” before he expressed his opinion about the virus and the shutdowns that’d come with it.

“When you see some of these department stores or grocery stores that are packed every single day, since day one, it’s only fair to let these people come out here and see a good race and for us to be able to put one on,” he said. “... Let’s enforce the rules that we need to enforce to keep everybody with the mindset to be safe.

“But at the same time, I think that we can do stuff like this and still be safe.”

Now there was only one race left, not among the most popular, and the Ace Speedway began to empty. Fans filed out of the gates, past the place where they’d stood in line hours earlier. Soon there was a line of cars slowly making their way out of the parking lot, red tail lights glowing. Behind them, the lights of the speedway illuminated the country darkness.

For weeks those lights had stayed dark, themselves, before Jason Turner and his father decided they’d grown tired of waiting. Turner was hoping there’d be a Waffle House that he could go to after he finished up at the track, and he said he was looking forward to attending church on Sunday morning, inside of the building.

Saturday night left him feeling like a winner. The noise was back at his track and so were the fans. For the people there, the spectacle became something of a celebration. For as much joy as there might have been in the gathering, there was also a sense of shared pride in an act of defiance. Before the start of the final race, the public address announcer spoke of American freedom and people who’d died fighting for it.

He spoke of Memorial Day and how “tonight is a big display of our freedom.”

Soon the cars sped around the track for the final time. Racing season at the Ace Speedway had only begun, and all were welcome.