Virginia ’ s Elk Creek Dragway not only provides one of the most robust bracket racing schedules in the Southeast with no fewer than 24 pointearning events in 2023 , this IHRAsanctioned dragstrip that sits near the North Carolina-Virginia line can also be credited with a revival of stick-shift racing on a grand scale . Track manager Mike Walters remembers the details well . “ By 1990 , automatic transmissions had all but taken over at the dragstrip , but I knew
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there were some stick-shift cars in the area that were sitting inside sheds and barns , and I wanted to get those cars out of the moth balls and back to the track ,” he says . Walters is a stick-shift racer at heart , and has owned a 1967 Mercury Comet for over 50 years , and even drove the car to high school .
So , at the beginning of the 1990 season , Walters approached then-track manager Dennis Jackson about starting a stick-shift class at Elk Creek . Jackson felt it was a long shot , but agreed
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to give it a go . By mid-season , the unfortunate writing was on the wall and Jackson pulled the plug on the new series since it was only averaging 5-6 cars per race . But the same day he scrubbed the new class , something extraordinary happened that changed everything . “ Dennis and I were standing in the staging lanes and he told me that the whole stick-shift idea wasn ’ t gonna fly , and they were throwing in the towel ,” remembers Walters .
Jackson barely had the words out of his mouth
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY VAN ABERNETHY |