Before Charlotte, the center of stock car racing was Spartanburg, South Carolina, and the half-mile dirt at the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds was the room where it happened. NASCAR's top series ran there twenty-two times between 1953 and 1966. Lee Petty won the first one. Ned Jarrett won six. Cotton Owens lived down the road and beat everybody at his own place. Then Charlotte Motor Speedway opened in 1960, the shops and the money followed it north, and by 1966 Spartanburg was just a town the sport used to live in.