The United Sprint Car Series is celebrating its 25th season this year. The Fayetteville, Ga.-based 360 winged sprint car series has flourished over the years and has made the Southeast — a stock car dominated area of the country — a sprint car destination.
Under the direction of founder Pete Walton, USCS is one of the most recognized 360 series in the country.
Walton was born and raised in Memphis and the 72-year-old grew up as a pit hand, helping Hooker and Rick Hood before eventually becoming a driver. Walton moved to Peachtree City, Ga., in 1981 to work for his brother and eventually made Georgia his home.
After racing karts for three years, Walton bought a sprint car from Blackie Fortune in 1986 and went racing. During his karting career that spanned from 1983-’85, Walton was an IKF Dirt Grand National champion in three classes.
Living in the Southeast, there weren’t a lot of local sprint car races. Walton found himself driving north almost every weekend to find a place to race. That all changed in 1988 when George Echols debuted the American Winged Outlaw Sprints. The series ran primarily in the Southeast and close to home for Walton. That first year, all but two of the races were in Georgia.
Walton’s association with AWOL went from driver to a silent business partner as he realized the need for the series.
“Me and Echols were partners for a while,” explained Walton. “I was a silent partner. After his first run with the series, he told me he had lost a lot of money. Probably because he was doing some dumb stuff. He told me he didn’t have any money to put back into it. I called him up one day after thinking about things and said, ‘I still want to race and I’m not interested in starting my own series. Let’s keep the AWOL deal going.’ He said, ‘You’ll have to have to put up all the money.’ At that point I found a couple of partners.
“We started losing money and by midseason we lost about $50,000,” Walton added. “My partners were not into this to lose money. They said we were spending too much money. But at the time it was hard not to. You had to spend $4,000 to $5,000 on radio to get people there. I was still a silent partner in the deal because I was still racing, but it was my money.
“The next year they were still spending too much money on the marketing side and it started going downhill. I finally got out.”
By 1996, the AWOL series was slowly coming to an end without Walton’s financial support.
“They were pissing people off and had irritated some of the tracks,” Walton said. “They weren’t rescheduling races. I was at Crossville, Tenn., racing one night and I hit a hole and turned my car over going for the lead. Billy Wilburn was there and he helped me load my car up. I said, ‘Billy I’m thinking about starting a series because these guys are all putting us out of the sprint car series business. What do you think?’ He said, ‘I think it’s a good idea Pete.’ I already knew most of the track owners from being a silent partner with Echols.”
Walton debuted the USCS in 1997 with a 13-race schedule. One was rained out and one was canceled. The series completed 11 races.
“I had a hired staff that first season. I told them if any decisions had to be made between me and some other car, go against me, even if it wasn’t my fault, so it wouldn’t look like there was any favoritism,” Walton said. “We were racing on that basis. Terry Gray won our very first race at the Talladega Short Track and Red Stauffer was our very first champion.”
When Walton started the USCS, sprint car racing in the Southeast was a novelty. Now, it is a regularity.
Walton has paved the way and made it easier for other series to exist and thrive in the Southeast. In fact, the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car Series listed events in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina on its schedule. It’s all thanks to Walton exposing southern fans to sprint car racing and developing a fan base in the area.
Click below to continue reading.