Oglethorpe Speedway Park, the Savannah, Ga.-area dirt track that has hosted victories for Hall of Fame racers Scott Bloomquist and Billy Moyer along with sending a local driver to fame as NASCAR's first-ever Weekly Racing Series champion, on Friday announced it would close in November after opening 70 years earlier.

"To all things there is an end, and it’s with great remorse we announce 2021 will be the end of races at the historic Oglethorpe Speedway Park," the track announced on Facebook. "After 70 years of entertaining fans of all ages with over half of those being under the ownership of the Stone family, urban sprawl has claimed yet another longstanding family-owned community business."

The 3/8-mile Pooler, Ga., track plans to continue Friday events through Sept. 10 and hosting the 24th annual Showdown in Savannah in October. The track's farewell event will be in November.

The track's first events were for motorcycles before its first stock car race in 1951 — won by Indianapolis 500 winner Johnnie Parsons — and within a few years hosted NASCAR Grand National Series events with race winner Lee Petty, Buck Baker, Ned Jarrett, Fireball Roberts among competitors.

The track's ups and downs included a stint as a horse racing track in 1965 before its closure and revival under Emory Stone and partners in 1977. Stone took sole ownership in 1980 and added NASCAR sanctioning that allowed David Into of Hardeeville, S.C., to race into history as 1984's NASCAR weekly champ during a stretch when he piled up 10 championships over 11 seasons.

Modern-day Dirt Late Models competed at Oglethorpe in events preceding Florida Speedweeks, with Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series and Southern All Star Racing Series events among them. NASCAR's Goody's Dash Series also hosted its first event on dirt at the track in 2004.

The Stone family continued to own and promote the track after Emory Stone's 2013 death at the age of 85 with the half-mile layout scaled down to 3/8-mile in 2018.

“We owe just about everything to Mr. Emory,” said Randall Jenkins, the track's former director of sales and promotions, upon Stone's death. “When he decided to buy (the property), he redid the whole track. He put in the grandstands and concessions. He was gung-ho when he took it over" with improved lighting, a retaining wall, and scoreboard in the early 1980s.

The 144-acre, 4,000-seat facility has also hosted concerts, car shows and other large group outings over the years, logging race attendance of more than 100,000 spectators per season in recent years.