Steve Earwood, Board Member – Director

Marshton, NC

Biography

Credited with putting drag racing on the media map while serving as the NHRA’s National Media Relations Director, Steve Earwood continues to raise the bar for the world’s most extreme motorsport as owner of historic Rockingham Dragway.

Twice honored as the IHRA National Promoter of the Year (2001 and 2008), Earwood was the 2016 recipient of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame Founder’s Award and is a member of both the East Coast Drag Racing Hall of Fame and the NHRA Southeast Division Hall of Fame.

A founding member of the North Carolina Motorsports Association, the resident of Southern Pines, N.C., has served on the Governor’s Motorsports Advisory Council and is a voting board member of the National Fire Protection Association, which drafted the document that serves as the fire safety guideline for all forms of motor racing.

Earwood directed NHRA’s national media program for eleven seasons, was Marketing Vice-President of Billy Meyer’s Texas Motorplex, Vice-President and General Manager of Atlanta Dragway and Public Relations consultant to Raymond Beadle’s Blue Max NASCAR Racing Team when it won the Winston Cup championship in 1989.

Since realizing his dream of track ownership with his purchase of The Rock in 1992, the Georgia native has transformed the track from a facility that for 20 years contested only two races a year into one that today is among the most active in the nation with more than 70 different annual events.

Under his direction, the NHRA Winston Invitational, which was contested at Rockingham from 1992 through 1998, became the most successful All-Star event in drag racing history leading, in 1994, to his acceptance of the NHRA’s “Man of the Year” Award in the Southeast region.

His tireless effort to keep the track viable in an ever-changing marketplace and to promote Carolina tourism also led to his acceptance, in 2010, of the Richmond County “Citizen of the Year” award.

-www.rockinghamdragway.com-