Cordele becoming world class facility for new World Crown 300

It’s certainly not the World Crown of old but Cordele Motor Speedway is certainly starting to become a world crown short track facility in advance of the $35,000-to-win feature event on Saturday in Southern Georgia.

First, a history refresher.

The World Crown 300 was held from 1983 to 2014 on the other side of the state at the track once known as Georgia International, Peach State Speedway, Jefco and Gresham Motorsports Park. That facility has since gotten the Copart treatment and is awaiting eventual demolition.

Meanwhile, the track once known as Watermelon Capital Speedway has methodically built itself up over the past decade, at first under the stewardship of the Lyle family and now Greg and Lori Noland, who leave general manager duties up to longtime racer and technical inspector Ricky Brooks.

Under their leadership, the facility has received a new lightning system, refurbished concrete grandstands and a still in production suite. Brooks says this is just the beginning of how they plan to transform the venerable short track.

“In all honesty, there’s no ends (to the plans) because they have a lot of goals,” Brooks told Short Track Scene of what the Nolands want to do. “Not even just the race track, but they have the other side of the property and they want to build up, one piece at a time, create a top-notch facility that everyone wants to come to.”

“The sentiment was echoed by rival Stephen Nasse.

“I’ll tell you that from the bathrooms to just the concessions, how clean everything is, and this isn’t to disrespect the Lyle family who put a lot into it as well,” Nasse said. “Everyone has put a lot into this place over the years but the Nolands are taking it to the next level.

“It’s not going to fix all the problems we ave in racing but it puts a smile on our faces knowing we have a nice clean place to race.”

The renovations includes an on-site restaurant and eventually, a video board.

“We took delivery of a jumbotron and it had some technical issues and it’s all in Chinese,” Brooks said. “So, I have spent way too much time on a zoom call with people in China and my accent, their accent, they just didn’t get along too well.”

Georgia native Bubba Pollard has raced at Cordele his entire life, and really, it’s the closest pavement track to his house in Senoia and he couldn’t say enough good things about Brooks and the Nolands.

“It’s nice and a place that I grew up racing and it really shows you, what they’ve done to this place, that they care about the racers,” Pollard said. “But not just the racers, fans and their family. We’re trying to do the same thing at Senoia (Speedway, the dirt track owned by the Pollards) do I really respect how much hard work it takes to do what they are trying to do here.”

As part of the new ownership group, which took over in January, a marquee event was conceived but Brooks wanted to lean into the rich history of Georgia racing with the World Crown 300 name if it wasn’t going to be used up the road in Jefferson.

“Yeah, I felt like the World Crown needed to be brought back when they weren’t able to bring it back a couple of years ago,” Brooks said.

He’s referencing a revival attempt in 2020 that was derailed by the COVID pandemic. 

“Jim Gresham was going to come here and be the grand marshal but he had some family matters and couldn’t be here. But he wanted to. But he gave his blessing to bring back the World Crown and having it in Georgia.”

Previous winners of the race include Darrell Waltrip, Rich Bickle, Gary Balough, Bobby Gill, Ronnie Sanders, and Chase Elliott before Casey Roderick claimed the last one a decade ago.

A staple of Brooks’ races on the UARA tour is his pit party atmosphere, which he has done at races at Berlin Raceway too, where he keeps the pits open and feeds teams through a local sponsorship.

“I learned years ago I can get my job done but also I like to hang out and I love to drink Crown,” Brooks said. “I love to hang out with the racers and we need more of this like we used to years ago. It didn’t matter if we were fighting at the race track because we would all go to the same bar, hang out, and talk shit all night.”

Brooks felt it was important to just have that environment at the track instead, not force anyone to have to figure out where everyone was driving to instead.

“Racing needs to get back to that camaraderie, in my opinion, that it needs to be more of what’s going on right here right now,” Brooks said. “Everybody hanging out just having a good time and not fussing and fighting. I put a lot of work into taking stress off the racers from an organizational standpoint and I think I do a good job of that.”

Racers approved wholeheartedly on Friday night.

Lastly, Brooks faced a health scare over the summer with a heart attack, but he says a heart stent has him feeling 100 percent.

“I didn’t feel bad before I just got nauseated at Auburndale during practice and wasn’t feeling good and I went to the hotel,” Brooks said. “I called a friend of mine, a doctor in Lakeland, and he told me to listen to my body and go to the hospital and they told me I was having a heart attack.”

Was that a wake up call at all?

“I had no idea I had anything going on but I had one artery 100 percent blocked and two at 25 percent,” Brooks said. “They put the stent in and I felt like a 100 bucks as soon as they did. I’m on some cholesterol and blood pressure medication, but went to the cardiologist and even came off some of those a little bit too.”