GREENSBORO — Former Rockingham Dragway owner Steve Earwood was among those honored Saturday at the North Carolina Drag Racing Hall of Fame banquet at the Greensboro Coliseum, the concluding event in the 21st annual Shriner’s Drag Racing and Hot Rod Expo benefitting Shriners’ Children’s Hospital.
Earwood, who after a 31-year stewardship sold the track on U.S. Highway 1 to Al Gennarreli and Dan Van Horn, accepted the Jeff Byrd Memorial Award from drag racing legend and fellow Carolina resident Shirley Muldowney.
Named for the former Winston Drag Racing team manager and late president and general manager of Bristol International Raceway, who lost his battle to cancer in 2010, the award recognizes lifetime achievement in the sport. The companion Pioneer Award was presented to the late Jim Turner, former operator of Piedmont Dragway, and his wife Dora.
Racers inducted into the Kernersville-based Hall of Fame were car builder and IHRA Pro Mod and Pro Stock racer Wally Stroupe, 20-time Top Fuel Motorcycle Champion Larry “Spiderman” McBride, Rob Vandergriff, driver of what once was “the world’s fastest ’57 Chevy,” and the Wisecarver brothers, former IHRA series champions Charlie and Gary.
Earwood, former national media relations director for the NHRA, drag racing’s principal sanctioning organization, bought Rockingham in 1992 and transformed it from a facility that ran just two races a season into one that was active on all but a dozen weekends each year.
On his watch, the track played host to the Winston Invitational, at the time the richest pro drag race on the planet with $100,000 paid to the winners in both the Top Fuel and Funny Car categories.
Before he bought The Rock, Earwood successfully promoted IMSA road races, the SCCA National Runoffs and selected SCCA Trans Am events as well as drag races. He also served as Public Relations consultant to the late Raymond Beadle’s Charlotte-based “Blue Max” NASCAR team when it won the Winston Cup championship in 1989 with driver Rusty Wallace.
“It’s a great honor,” Earwood said, “but to have Shirley make the presentation, (that) put it in a category by itself. She and I have a lot of history together. She broke all the barriers in motor sports and she always was willing to go the extra mile to promote drag racing and change the image. She and I did a lot of appearances and media tours in the 1970s and ‘80s.”
A founding member of the North Carolina Motorsports Association, a member of the Governor’s Motorsports Advisory Council and an active member of the board of Racers for Christ International, Earwood was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2016. He and his brother, Terry, a former U.S. Nationals Super Stock Champion, are members of the NHRA’s Southeast Division Hall of Fame which encompasses the states of Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.
