Franklin County Speedway Announces 2021 Schedule

Following a successful 2020 campaign, Franklin County Speedway will return to action in 2021 for 20 events over the course of 18 weekends.

Track promoter Langley Austin expressed his excitement on what he hopes will be a normal season and is looking forward to delivering another great year of racing for the drivers and fans.

“[Last year] was an incredibly challenging year for everyone,” Austin explained. “We are out in the middle of nowhere, so we were able to operate when a lot of the tracks in the middle of cities or bigger areas were not able to. We had a special year, but 2021 is going to be more of a rebuilding year for us as we adjust to the current climate and try to find budget friendly ways for racers to go racing.”

Four different core divisions will make up the 2021 season at Franklin County. The Late Models will headline the on-track action and will compete under rules from the 2020 Charger division that Austin believes will put racing back in the hands of the driver.

The other three divisions that will primarily compete at Franklin County this year include Mini Stocks, Stock4 and the Any Car division, which will encourage competitors to bring their own vehicle to the track with little to no modifications.

Austin said that the decision to focus on just four different full-time divisions is one that benefits the track and its competitors from a financial standpoint and should encourage decent car counts throughout the year.

“Racetracks are sometimes their own worst enemy when it comes to how many options to go racing there is,” Austin said. “When I took over here for the first time in 2013, I think there was seven divisions of racing and most classes were struggling for car count. We have narrowed that down overtime and now we are down to just four divisions for 2021 with a couple of series and divisions that will compete on a part time basis.

To improve on the momentum from 2020, Austin has scheduled races on both Saturday night and Sunday evening so that he does not interfere with other tracks that are trying to rebound from lost years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With most tracks in the region back to operating at a somewhat normal pace this season, it just doesn’t make sense for us to try and divide up the fan base,” Austin stated. “There’s a lot of opportunity out there for racetracks to be successful if they work together and with us getting a late start to developing our schedule it gave us a unique opportunity to craft things around as many other events as we possibly can.

Several touring series will also make visits to Franklin County Speedway in 2021 like the Carolina Mini Stock Challenge, the Virginia Vintage Racers and the Battle of the Commonwealth featuring the Carolina Pro Late Model Series and Carolina Crate Modified Series on July 10.

Additional events and dates will be announced in the coming weeks, but Austin is hoping that a significant decline in COVID-19 cases will result in a much more orderly yet successful year at Franklin County.

“We’re still trying to finalize so many different things about the schedule for the rest of the year, but we needed to get our dates out there so people could begin to plan around them,” Austin commented. “Hopefully, this won’t be like 2020 when we seemingly had to change the schedule every week in some way. We’ll take some normalcy and work hard to build this track back into something special for every event.”

Franklin County’s 53rd consecutive season will begin on March 27 with the Star City Stunner, which will include a $1,000-to-win, 50-lap Any Car feature.

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