On the surface, the Historic Occoneechee Speedway Trail, located along the southern banks of the Eno River, presents a wonderful and rich sense of serenity. But what is now rich with nature, pines and vines, sycamores and sweet gums, is also rich with history.

Take a shovel and dig just below the surface, and you might run across a cleat that belonged to an Orange High football player, or perhaps a spark plug from some race car that ran 1948-1968 on one of NASCAR's first dirt tracks.

Look a bit farther down, and you could run across a civil war uniform button. Delve even deeper, and you may just run across a shard of 300-year-old Native American pottery.

That same stretch of land, layered with the record of diverse populations, is now wonderfully, but eerily, silent.

Today, it puts a speed limit of life's pace; a stroll seems the top speed appropriate to match the languid, meandering Eno.

Still, as a truck's growl on Interstate 85 echoes through the trees, one is reminded of a time here when tires spat gravel and engines screamed.

"I know of some folks living around there that would hear the track," said Mark Wells, who was walking the area's trails with Liz Melvin on Saturday. "I've read the stuff written on the [information] boards. ... It's pretty cool. It's pretty amazing."

Melvin also liked the remnants of the old grandstand, "which is really cool."

Melvin and Wells were just two of the many visitors who have discovered the Historic Occoneechee Speedway Trail, a three-mile path that also retraces the former speedway's old 0.9-mile oval and provides, along its backstretch, views of the Eno River.

While hikers and leashed pets are welcome on the trail, no bikes or motorized vehicles are allowed at the site located on Elizabeth Brady Road, off alternate N.C. 70 in Hillsborough.

Deep in history

The 44-acre site sits across from Ayr Mount, a beautiful Federal-style home on St. Mary's Road. Also located on the grounds of Ayr Mount is Poet's Walk, another mile-long trail that winds along the river.

"The Poet's Walk is a mile, and it's not connected to the Speedway Trail," Ayr Mount caretaker Bill Crowther said. "The oval is about one mile, and there are side trails going down to the Eno River. By the end of this year, we may have another half-mile there."

Crowther explained that, while Classical American Homes Preservation Trust owns Ayr Mount, the Historic Occoneechee Speedway Trail was created and is managed by Preservation North Carolina (http://www.presnc.org).

The PNC Web site notes that by the 17th Century, the Occoneechee native people were living off the fertile soil and abundant wildlife throughout the Eno River Valley.

"There are archeological sites on the infield that aren't yet dug," Crowther said.

In the 1700s, an English land grant divided the property into family-owned farms. In the 1800s, Civil War troops bivouacked in the area, Crowther noted.

Around 30 years after the Civil War, the farmland was also used to train horses. It was that training track -- about a half-mile oval -- and the adjoining land that was spotted by Bill France while piloting his plane over the expanse another 40 years later.

France, NASCAR's founder, built a dirt track there in September 1947, and stock car racing took off in Hillsborough with a race on June 27, 1948.

The Occoneechee Speedway was one of the first eight NASCAR tracks to open, and it was the last dirt track remaining from NASCAR's inaugural season.

During two decades of racing, the speedway hosted such notable names as Fireball Roberts, Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett, Louise Smith and Junior Johnson, competing in the "Strictly Stock" and Grand National series, according to the Eno River Association. The track gained a reputation for the dust and red-clay mud that would coat the windshields (and sometimes racing fans).

With no barriers at the track's banked first turn, more than one driver ended up heading down the Eno River bank.

"For the first race, they got around 15,000 fans," Crowther said. "The big crowd was in 1963 when Jane Mansfield came ... and they got 17,000."

End of an era

After that, attendance leveled off to 7,000 to 8,000 through the 1960s, he said. Due to lessening crowds, speedier cars and local resistance to Sunday racing, France finally shut down the operation in 1968 and moved to Alabama, where he soon opened the Talladega Superspeedway.

"There was definitely an increase in the number of incidents, alcohol arrests and speeding tickets associated with the racing," Crowther said. "It wasn't just the noise and keeping people away from the church; law enforcement was also complaining."

On Sept. 15, 1968, racing legend Richard Petty grabbed the last checkered flag in front of 6,700 fans at Occoneechee. Traveling 167 laps at an average speed of 87.6 miles per hour in a '68 Plymouth, Petty earned a whopping $1,600.

For a few years after the racing ended, France retained ownership of the property, which played host to everything from horse races to high school football games.

"Bill France gave a contract to Orange High School for three or four years," Crowther explained. "The new high school was just completed, and they didn't have a football field yet."

Soon thereafter, nature began to reclaim its own. Pines and cedars sprouted and filled the infield. Structures rotted and collapsed, and artifacts were scrounged by nostalgic treasure seekers.

"With the death of Bill France Sr. in June of 1992, and co-owner Enoch Staley in May of 1995, the families were looking for ways to settle their estates," Crowther wrote in a recent essay.

Ayr Mount conservators made an offer on the old track portion of the parcel, but it was declined. In 1997, PNC bought the site from the estates of NASCAR founder William France and Enoch Staley, with funding provided by the James M. Johnston Trust and CAHPT, who took title to the property with extensive protective covenants, according to the PNC Web site.

HOST of helpers

Crowther began a plan called Historic Occoneechee Speedway Trail (HOST) and recruited help to build walking trails onsite. HOST officially opened in September 2003 and now attracts both nature lovers and racing enthusiasts.

One such assembly of collectors and racing fans approached Crowther in 2006, wishing to restore buildings, clean up the grounds, grandstands and infield, and ultimately build a museum.

This Historic Speedway Group (HSG) has raised money and awareness through annual community car shows on Elizabeth Brady Road near the property.

In the meantime, Crowther is putting up a fence that runs from gate to gate, cleaning up outbuildings and adding gravel to the entrance road.

However, don't expect to see anything on the site that resembles the open fields upon which the speedway once sat.

"I'm not going to clear-cut anything," Crowther insisted. "It's all going to remain a natural area with the historic areas. There won't be any recreation or any racing. Once we put any outbuildings up, it's for museum purposes. It's all for passive recreation -- no active recreation at all."

One other additional sight visitors might enjoy on the property is the presence of through-hikers along the North Carolina Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Its corridor runs along the Eno River.

Whether future visitors are lovers of nature or NASCAR, perhaps it is the current entanglement of both that is so striking here, as nature casts shadows on bright memories. Vines choke at the light standards, concrete cracks, and what was once the roar of engines and crowds is now the roar of wind through the long leaf pines.

"I love running across the old grandstands though," said John Bemis, who lives adjacent to the site. "It's a little like finding some ancient Roman ruins."

(For more information about the trail, contact the Historic Speedway Group at (919) 732-6886. Contact Randy Young at chnsports@nando.com or by calling 932-8743.)