Southern All Stars

SAS was born in Birmingham, Alabama, as the brainchild of B.J. Parker, a longtime race promoter and former owner of Birmingham International Raceway. For his first racing event, Parker enlisted the help of his old friend Bobby Allison. "I called Bobby and got him to come up' and race and serve as a 'drawing card' to get the fans interested," Parker recalls. "That race went real well, so I went to Columbus, Mississippi, to do the same thing and got Red Farmer to come race. That also went real well." Race fans came in droves to see the headliners as well as the top local drivers race together, and Parker began to realize he was on to something with serious potential. "I noticed that what made the people show up was that we had the best drivers from seven or eight different tracks. So, sort of like an all-star football game, I got the idea of an all-star series," he says. Thus, in 1983, the Southern All Star Racing Series was born. The first year of SAS saw only 12 races, but Parker's idea was getting noticed, and today SAS holds almost 60 races at 20 racetracks throughout the Southeast.