LOXLEY, Alabama — Casey Hinds, track manager at Deep South Speedway in Loxley, is settling back into a normal routine.

A visit to the track on Wednesday found Hinds getting ready for another Saturday night of racing at the track, located off of Highway 59 north of Interstate 10 between Loxley and Stapleton.

 “It’s a fulltime job,” he said. “I’m just doing the best I can to use my experience in the entertainment industry and my experience in the racing industry to give the fans the best experience.”

But the last month has been anything but routine for Hinds and local residents who were able to be a part of Hollywood and Nashville.

Throughout the month of June and into July, production crews from Mobile brought in actors from Hollywood, along with Nashville legends Tracy Lawrence and Cody McCarver (known to many as a member of the country band Confederate Railroad) for the filming of the movie L.A. Dirt.

“They really did a lot to showcase this area and support the local businesses here,” Hinds said.

Written by Baldwin County native Watt Key, a Bayside Academy graduate, best-selling author of “Alabama Moon;” and produced by Key and Sean Esfahani, owner of Eastern Shore Toyota in Spanish Fort, along with Keith Tippit and Chris Mestiza, the movie follows Ty Hargrove, a teenage dirt-track racer from Bay Minette, played by up and coming actor Michael Roark (Magic Mike and Dolphin Tale).

In addition to filming racing scenes during the track’s regular Saturday night races, a lot of scenes were filmed well into the night at the track, Hinds said.

“I think the earliest we got done was like 1 a.m.,” he said. “Most days filming would continue until 2 or 3 in the morning.”

The film follows Hargrove, who works as a manager at his uncle’s telephone pole plant during the week, then “pursues his passion, racing on the dirt track,” on weekends with his sidekick, Lurvy Wilson (played by newcomer Garrett Crawford Smith) as they battle their nemesis, Snake Turner (Brent Henry).

This is the first film role for Lawrence, who stars in the film as Ty’s Uncle Charlie, owner of the telephone pole plant. The plant scenes were filmed at Baldwin Pole & Piling in Robertsdale. Many other scenes were filmed in and around Baldwin County, including The Shrimp Basket, which is featured in the film as the local hangout. Scenes were also shot at Bohemian Park at the head of Fish River between Silverhill and Fairhope.

Lawrence and McCarver have also each agreed to write songs for the film, said director Tom Stout. The film also features young singer Donica Knight. All principal shooting has been done for the film which is about a third of the way through the editing process.

“We’re about 38 minutes into the 100-minute process,” he said in a phone interview on Friday. “We’re done filming with all the actors, but we have some ‘B-roll’ shots left to finish; some racing scenes and we need a shot of the sunset, things like that.”

Once the editing process is finished, Stout said, then it will be on to scoring the film, along with adding the songs.

“We’re looking at having the film ready for release, probably by November,” he said. “We’ve been talking to movie theaters here locally and will have a screening for the prinicpals at that time.”

While most of the principals in the film are Hollywood actors, along with using local businesses for scenes, 99 percent of the production crew and extras used in the film are local.

“We really wanted to do something to boost the local economy,” Stout said. The purpose of the film is also to present the local area and local people in a positive light.

“A lot of films have been made that have portrayed the South in a negative light,” Stout said. “Our goal was to present the local area as another positive character in the film.”

Another positive character, Stout said, is the growing sport of dirt-track racing.

“NASCAR is becoming more and more popular, but people are still learning about dirt track racing,” he said. “It’s a growing sport in this area and we certainly wanted to present it in a positive light as well.”

Hinds said the filmmakers did a good job of doing just that and he is looking forward to working with them in the future.

“There has been talk of other projects and I think it’s good, not only for us but to have them come in and support local business,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to doing it again.”

To learn more about the movie, like them at facebook.com/ladirtmovie. For more information about Deep South Speedway, go to deepsouthdirt.com.