7 replies to this topic

[MPea3]

Still unable to do much after my accident, I was trying to clean out the basement and discovered a box from my parents house that I'd never been through. In it I found my stock certificate from Road Atlanta from when I was a kid. As I remember, the track had a stand set up a couple of years before they opened at the big auto show downtown, and my parents, knowing I was so obsessed with racing, had purchased me 25 shares. My first investment!!! Being a stockholder did get me two free tickets to the first public race, the 1970 CanAm race.

I'm not completely sure of what each share cost back then... I seem to remember $2 a share but I could be wrong... but whatever it was was not easy for my parents to afford. Looking back, I realize the lengths they went to helping a young kid explore and enjoy his passion. My mother was an English teacher and my father a university librarian. The whole racing thing was totally foreign to them.

Of course, a couple of years later when they went bankrupt, my shares became worthless. In the mid 70s I ran into Earl Walker, who was running a print shop in Decatur, GA. Recognizing the name, I mentioned that I'd had stock in the track, and he turned white as a sheet and mumbled an apology. I suspect he'd had some angry stockholder experiences over the years.

It was fun these 40+ years later to find the certificate.

[JacnGille]

A long lost friend of mine has a set of construction drawing for the track itself. How I wish I had a set too.

[MPea3]

What I WISH I had was the brochure from the auto show. The track map at that time showed a track drawn without any consideration for the lay of the land, and was very simple and had mostly 90 degree corners. The back straight was inded straight, and the esses were just a couple of simple turns rather than the interesting shape that evolved.

I also remember that the original track length, 2.52 miles, was measured by a local rallyist named Alan Bingham using a Heuer Robo rally computer. From dinner with Alan about 1977 or so, a more faded memory thinks Alan did a few runs down the center of he track, and came up with a length in thousandths which was rounded up to the 2.52.

Useless details, I know. But when you're old and broken, what else is there to do?

[kayemod]

Paying $50 in exchange for two tickets to a CanAm event seems like a pretty good deal to me, with the added bonus of something pretty to frame and hang on your wall as a memento.

[MPea3]

Agreed!

[E1pix]

That's really cool, MPea3!

I love anything Road Atlanta!


('cept the current owner — see "Burzynski")

[URY914]

When I was a kid my family visited Six Flags Over Georgia amusment park which was west of Atlanta. Chevrolet had a new car disply and the showed a 10 minute or so film shot at Road Atlanta. They used Corvettes running around the track with cameras mounted on the front bumpers. The track had just opened and for a 12 year old kid it was great. In 1977 I went to the track for a IMSA race and watch 935's battle David Hobbs in the BMW 320i turbo and later I would find myself driving my own racecar around the track. I love that place...

[tlc356]

You clearly have a wonderful investment here. The old corporation is worth zero, but you paid zero for the certificate.

My guess is that the certificate itself today is worth more than your parents paid for the stock when the track was a going business. Tom