The Busiest Airport In The World Used To Be A Racetrack

Over the past several years, Atlanta has evolved into a hot spot for the world of motorsports. Road Atlanta's 10-hour endurance race, Petit Le Mans, has become a crown jewel for IMSA as its high-drama finale. Just 60 miles south, EchoPark Speedway's repave for the 2022 racing season transformed the Atlanta Motor Speedway into a mini Talladega. The increased banking in the new configuration has given us wheel-to-wheel pack racing and some of the most thrilling finishes in NASCAR's recent years.

Case in point; if thrilling racing is happening, there's a solid shot it's going down in Atlanta. However, the history of motorsports in "The A" traces back to a place that's become iconic to the city for an entirely different reason.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is famous to some and infamous to others. Taking the crown as the busiest airport in the world, only once in the last 27 years has another airport on the globe seen more passengers go through its terminals. But the land it occupied once dealt with a very different form of traffic. That's because, before hosting the busiest airport in the world, the soil of Hartsfield-Jackson once bore the shape of one of the world's first superspeedways.

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Atlanta's first race track

Our story starts with Asa Candler Jr. As the son of Asa Candler, Coca-Cola's founder and former Atlanta Mayor, "Buddie" became infatuated with motorsports after watching the Vanderbilt Cup races in 1908. Before long, Candler Sr. caught the racing bug as well, and both father and son wanted to bring the thrill of motor sports to Atlanta.

Alongside Atlanta businessman Ed Durant, the Candlers set out to build a world-class racing facility to host races during the Atlanta Car Show in November of 1909. In the summer of that year, they purchased the flattest land they could find, which ended up being a parcel of nearly 300 acres located just seven miles south of downtown. Several months and around $400,000 later, Atlanta Speedway was born.

At two miles long and 100 feet wide, the clay, sand, and asphalt track featured banked turns and seating for 40,000. Today, Delta's corporate offices sit where the northern half of the oval used to be, with the other half of the track in the middle of what's now Hartsfield-Jackson's northern runways. During opening day on November 9, 1909, thousands flooded the stands to watch the first-ever motor race held in Atlanta. That, unfortunately, would be the biggest highlight of the circuit's history.

From races to runways

By the time spring races came around the following May, lineups had few pro drivers, with mostly local amateurs taking to the track. No pros meant few fans, and spectator turnout was nearly a fraction of the attendance during November's races. Despite Jr.'s attempts to promote races across the East Coast, as well as using the venue to host airshows and air races, ticket sales simply weren't enough to keep the track in the green. After a major falling out with Ed Durant and waning confidence in the track turning a profit from Senior, the decision was made to close the track before the end of 1910.

Those airshows and air races, however, would be the inspiration for the Candlers to use the site to host aircraft. In 1919, the family agreed to donate the property and turn the racetrack into an "aero landing place" (we didn't have a name for the airport yet). Six years later, a five-year lease was signed with Mayor Walter A. Sims to loan the track to the city and to convert the land into an airport, renaming the land to Candler Field. The following year, on September 15, 1926, the first scheduled service took to the skies from the field in the form of a Florida Airways flight bound for destinations throughout the Sunshine State.

That flight would be the first of millions, as nearly a century later, Atlanta's airport would become well-regarded as one of the biggest and busiest airports on the planet.

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