Family and friends of the late Fulmer Lance were proud to attend his posthumous induction into the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame Class of 2025 on Saturday, Aug. 2, in Dawsonville.
Born and raised in Blairsville, Lance was a longtime resident of Washington, Georgia, when he passed away in 2017 at the age of 72. He relocated to Washington 45 years before his death in furtherance of a fruitful engineering career.
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His friend Robert Turner, also of Blairsville, nominated him for the Hall of Fame earlier this year. Turner and Lance bonded decades ago over their shared passion for racing, and they ended up working together in the telecommunications industry and eventually became great friends.
“Fulmer was a straight-up guy, a great racer and a good family man who deserves to be recognized by induction into the (Georgia Racing Hall of Fame),” Turner wrote in his endorsement letter.
Established in 2002, the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame is the state’s official museum of motorsports and inducts a new group of drivers each year in recognition of their achievements and contributions to the sport.
Lance began racing at 22 in a 1956 Ford at the Tri-County Speedway in Murphy, North Carolina, winning his debut race and sparking a desire to continue racing. This desire continued for four decades with Lance quickly becoming a big contender in the dirt track circuits.
By the early 1970s, Lance was teamed up with Steve Roberson driving cars for Randall Twiggs, who owned Twiggs Garage and Machine Shop in Blairsville. Their successful union had them racing and dominating in many tracks, including Tri-County, Canton, Sugar Creek, Hartwell and even into Anderson, South Carolina, Timmonsville, South Carolina and Cleveland, Tennessee.
In 1979, Lance moved into a Camaro of Doug Evans of Lincolnton, making a name for himself across the Southeast circuit and nationally as he bested the top drivers at the National Dirt Racing Association’s Winter’s 100 at Pearson Speedway in Louisville, Mississippi.
As a semi-regular with Robert Smawley’s traveling group, Lance amassed several Top 10 finishes and even finished ninth in final series points during NDRA’s inaugural season.
Lance would go on to drive for several car owners all over the Southeast region throughout his career, even reaching out to race in events in Iowa and West Virginia, to name a couple of major spots. In West Virginia, Lance competed in the 1984 Dirt Track World Championship.
Not only was Lance competitive around the Southeast, but he was also extremely competitive in his more local, hometown tracks. Track season titles were earned in Gordon Park and Winder Barrow; in Anderson, South Carolina, where he was given a checkered flag at the end of the racing season for having the most wins that year at 13 out of 18 races; and Tri-County as well, where in one abbreviated season he captured wins in 13 out of 16 races along with the track crown.
Lance was inducted into the 2016 National Dirt Late-Model Hall of Fame after 40 years of competition.
He was the son of the late Champ and Edna Everett Lance of Blairsville, and the husband of Jeanie Nicholson Lance. He worked as an engineer at Wilkes Telephone and Electric Company in Washington until he retired and was a veteran of the U.S. Navy.
Other 2025 Georgia Racing Hall of Fame Inductees were Mike Helton, Ethel Flock Mobley, Bob Morris and Johnny Thomas, the latter also from Blairsville. Thomas’ induction was featured in the Aug. 13 edition of the North Georgia News.
