Legendary chassisman Tommy Mauney had just constructed a trio of Chevy Lumina Pro Mods, and by \u201cPro Mods\u201d I mean these were the Funny Car bodies he took and cut out some doors, making them \u201clegal\u201d to run in Pro Modified. Of course, this only lasted for a single season, as IHRA quickly revised the rulebook for 1993.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it was on this particular weekend at Greer Dragway that I got my first look at these radical Funny Car-bodied \u201cdoorslammers\u201d from Mauney\u2019s TM Race Cars shop, located in Spartanburg\u2026roughly a half-hour east of Greer. Mauney built one for himself, and the other two went to Michael Martin and Scotty Cannon, respectively, with Cannon winning the IHRA world championship with his.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thirty-five years ago, I also began writing a weekly drag racing column and took photos for my local newspaper, so I always kept rolls of black-and-white film handy for my newspaper job. I had to dig deep into the archives for this month\u2019s column photo of Cannon roasting the tires at Greer on that fateful day back in 1992. This photo first appeared in my local newspaper, the\u00a0Lenoir News Topic<\/em>, more than three decades ago. A few years after this pic was snapped, Mauney and Cannon returned to Greer \u2013 driving more traditional-looking Pro Mods \u2013 for a Saturday night match race, and you could hardly walk for all the spectators!\u00a0<\/p>\n Many of the early Pro Mod racers on the East Coast honed their skills at Greer, and when Cannon went NHRA Funny Car racing in the late 1990s, he even brought his nitro flopper to Greer to dazzle the fans! The quality of talented racers that came out of this smalltown dragstrip has always been impressive, but there was this one particular season in the 1990s where five IHRA world champions were Greer regulars. Going back further, Gene Fulton raced here often with his Modified Corvette, and also his famous 1964 Chevy II wagon.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mike Greer began racing here in the 1970s before going to work for the track in 1988, and then wound up buying the place a number of years later.\u00a0<\/p>\n Throughout the track\u2019s 67-year history, there\u2019s been many memorable happenings here, including the first-ever Southeast Gassers event in 2011, which yielded seven cars for the inaugural event. From that gathering exploded a touring series that has topped over 100 period-correct race cars for a single event.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBret Kepner was announcing for us at our gasser events, and one time he called me several weeks before the event and asked if the name \u2018Norman Peace\u2019 rang a bell,\u201d recalls Greer. Mike didn\u2019t know the fellow, but Kepner being the historian that he is, dug through all sorts of information until he found out who won the very first race at Greer Dragway in 1958, which was, of course, Norman Peace.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo, Bret says to me, \u2018How cool would it be to track down Norman and invite him to the gasser race?’\u201d So, Mike and a few others went to work with the mission of tracking down Mr. Peace, which they did, and he gladly accepted their invitation of being the guest of honor. \u201cBret interviewed him on the starting line,\u201d Greer says, \u201cand it absolutely made Norman\u2019s day!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While old-school events like these are right up Mike\u2019s alley, he\u2019ll still experiment with new trends. In fact, there\u2019s a 5.30 index race on the 2025 schedule for the first time. \u201cThem boys run first round right off the trailer without a practice run, and we don\u2019t give them a time slip all day\u2026I couldn\u2019t have imagined such a thing a few years ago!\u201d laughs Mike. Neither could he have envisioned street cars taking a 20-30-mile trip around town before returning to the track and ripping off 4-second-zone runs!\u00a0<\/p>\n The track has long been a hotbed for competitive bracket racing and that hasn\u2019t changed, with nine WDRA points races on the schedule. Even the famous Turkey Trot race is now in its 51st running, albeit with a few scheduling changes over the years. \u201cWe used to run it on Thanksgiving Day,\u201d Greer says, \u201cbut we were getting some pushback from the county, so we started having it on either the Saturday before or the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Then, as I got older and realized I didn\u2019t really like the cold, we moved it to October!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Mike turns 70 this year, but tells me he\u2019s not ready to retire just yet. But when he is, he\u2019s got every confidence in his daughter, Alisha Alexander, who grew up racing here and can pretty much run the place with the best of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n My list of visited dragstrips is holding steady at 167 for the moment, and in chronological order, Greer Dragway comes in at roughly the seventh track I ever stepped foot on. My memories here are fond ones, and it\u2019s always a pleasure to check back in and enjoy a Saturday at this legendary hangout that has so much history.<\/p>\n This story was originally published on September 3, 2025. The post On The Road: Greer Dragway\u2019s Rich History<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greer Dragway is among the oldest still-active dragstrips in the Palmetto State of South Carolina, holding its opening-day event in October 1958. Yours truly first laid eyes on the place 33 years, back when I was working for IHRA photographer Bryan Epps. The year was 1992, and I caught a ride to Greer with Bryan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Drag](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DI_flat_red-e1711481551475.png\")
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