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ОглавлениеThe 1940s: Let’s Get Organized
The conclusion of World War II flew the green flag on a growth period of never before-seen economic prosperity and individual freedom.
Americans were flush with confidence after winning World War II. Meanwhile, the economy, in the depths of the Great Depression at the onset of the war, was at full steam.
People had money and were ready to spend it. Subsequently, families grew larger with the start of the Baby Boom while another boom in the construction of private homes also began.
Meanwhile, Detroit’s Big Three (Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors) didn’t disappoint. Dated pre-war designs were ditched for new vehicles featuring updated stylish exteriors and more-powerful V-8 engines. In the four years prior to the end of the decade, these new, sleeker models boasted an array of improvements such as keyed ignition starting, hydraulic disc brakes, turn signals, and torque converter–based automatic transmissions.
In addition, new cars were attainable to almost everyone as both GM and Ford pioneered in-house auto financing. Meanwhile, the first driver’s education classes made getting behind the wheel easier and less intimidating than ever.
The shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean was flooded with cars prior to the running of a Modified race on the Daytona Beach Road Course. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
Throw in a massive government initiative to build roads virtually everywhere in the United States, and the era of the American automobile took off on a journey that continues today.
Of course, all of this was good for stock car racing. During World War II, racing was all but dead, but with new vehicles quickly coming to market, unwanted 1930s and early 1940s cars were available and inexpensive. This fueled a renaissance of the sport across America almost immediately after the final shots of the war.
Meanwhile, forward-thinking impresarios such as Bill France Sr. envisioned organizing the sport on a more professional level and a new form of racing taking stock cars off the showroom floor and racing with little modification. This “Strictly Stock” idea was an immediate hit, but more important, the concept took racing from the track and put it squarely in the driveway of every American home.
To say this convergence of events forever changed stock car racing would be an understatement; the late 1940s made stock car racing, and NASCAR specifically, a part of the American sports landscape.
71 One of the biggest detriments to launching a Strictly Stock division after World War II was the lack of new cars. Out of production since 1942, auto manufacturers had to retool before they could offer the public more than warmed-over pre-war styles. That put the Strictly Stock racing idea on hold until 1949 leaving the modified division to do most of the racing from 1945 to 1949. These 1937-and-newer coupes and sedans were required to have a stock-appearing look by retaining full fenders and windshields. They were also required to use the original ignition system and gas tank. The engine rules were wide-open as there were no bore and stroke requirements (they could be made as large as the engine could withstand). New and/or multiple carburetors, ground crankshafts and cams, and high-compression heads were also allowed to produce engines that could carry the small, lightweight cars to speeds well over 120 mph.
Red Byron (22) and Swain Prichett (17) battle their way through a pack of cars at the Hall County Fairgrounds in Gainesville, Georgia, on July 4, 1947. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)
72 While new tubeless and radial tire designs were introduced and manufactured in the 1940s, most racing tires were still bias-ply rayon cord construction. The use of regular passenger car or truck tires got a boost in the late 1940s with the introduction of the 4-ply rayon cord tire. Although the thicker rubber carcass of the tires created more heat at high speeds, the double strength four-plies advanced both safety and speed because they stood up to the rigors of racing better than prior two-ply models.
73 NASCAR legend Ralph Moody’s first car (a 1940 Ford Coupe) is typical of the low-buck stock cars that competed throughout the South after the end of the war. Moody’s car remained stock to a large degree, with wheelwells enlarged for clearance and the doors welded shut for safety. Both front and rear bumpers were removed and replaced with steel “booger bars.” Under the hood, the mostly stock 239-ci Ford Flathead V-8 was bored out to a total displacement of 250 ci. Thanks to performance parts such as an Ed Iskenderian camshaft and a Stromberg 97 carburetor, the engine produced an estimated 100 hp. The power was delivered to the wheels through a stock 3-speed transmission and a Ford 3.78 rear-end gear. As with many stock cars of the day, Moody’s car retained its headlights so it could be driven home after the race.
74 Lee Petty was a hardscrabble farmer from Level Cross, North Carolina, when, at the age of 35, he decided to give stock car racing a try in 1948. Petty and his brother Julie built a stock car out of an old 1937 Plymouth coupe and entered it in a race at Danville, Virginia. Amazingly, Petty won and at his next racing event in Roanoke, Virginia, finished second. Buoyed by his success, Petty borrowed a Buick Roadmaster from Gilmer Goode and headed to Charlotte for the first NASCAR Strictly Stock race in 1949. The big car was no match for the hard-cornering racing conditions and Petty wound up barrel-rolling the new vehicle into scrap iron. After the race, Petty swore he’d never race a big, heavy vehicle again and when he returned for the third NASCAR Strictly Stock race at Occoneechee Speedway, it was in a 1949 Plymouth Business Man’s two-door coupe. Powered by an inline Plymouth 6-cylinder engine, the lightweight car, producing just 97 hp, proved to be a formidable racer as Petty posted five-straight top-10 finishes, including the brand’s first NASCAR win at Heidelberg (Pittsburgh) Speedway October 2, 1949. The $1,500 Heidelberg first prize, and more than $3,300 in season winnings, gave Petty the money and the resolve to continue racing Plymouths to six wins through the 1952 season. Petty switched his efforts to Dodge in 1953 after Chrysler Corporation introduced its new Hemi V-8.
75 The success of NASCAR’s new Strictly Stock division in 1949 was based on the premise that each car had to be as close as possible to what an Average Joe could purchase. Meaning, for the first season, 1947–1949 American manufactured cars were eligible to enter. Unlike today’s modern rulebook, however, the Strictly Stock had just two rules. The first was that the car must be showroom stock. The second rule allowed for the installation of a steel reinforcing plate on the passenger-side front wheel. This was done in the interest in safety because without the reinforcement, the lug nuts would likely pull through the wheel due to heavy loading in the corners.
76 While duct tape earned the nickname, “200-miles-an-hour tape” in modern NASCAR, the first widely used tape in the sport was masking tape. Drivers spent hours prior to a 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock race taping off the headlights, signallights, and taillights as well as bright work, including bumpers, grilles, and bodyside and roof moldings. A giant visor made of masking tape was also often placed across the top of windshield. All this was done to protect the car from debris that kicked up off the track or beach at speed during a race. At the conclusion of the event, the “100-mph masking tape” was easily removed, any residue cleaned up with a little body solvent, and the car was ready to drive back home after the race.
77 Initially, the Roadster Division was part of Bill France Sr.’s vision for NASCAR. France knew he couldn’t hang his hat on only Modified races, so Roadsters and a Strictly Stock division seemed like complementary add-ons. Besides, Roadsters were already playing to big car counts and crowds, especially across the Northeast and Midwest. As much as he wanted it to succeed, Roadster racing never really caught on with the predominantly Southern fan base. As late as February 1949, France was trying to make the Roadsters part of the mix with the First-Annual National Gran Prix Roadster Classic. The Broward Speedway race attracted the best Roadster drivers of the day including “King of the Roadsters,” Dick Frazier, an Indiana driver who won an incredible 21-straight Roadster events in 1948. Bob Flock wound up winning the 100-mile event, but the writing was on the wall for Roadsters in general as NASCAR dropped the Yankee Division in 1950 and the class had all but faded away by the middle of the decade.
78 Chrysler Corporation didn’t invent hydraulic brakes, but did introduce the first reliable hydraulic disc brake system as standard equipment in a mass-produced car, the 1949 Chrysler Imperial. The system featured the now-familiar flat pressure plates (or discs) coated with a lining called Cyclebond. Front disc brakes became common in NASCAR for the next two decades. Team owner Roger Penske, driver Mark Donohue, and their AMC Matador became the first to use a four-wheel disc brake configuration on a Winston Cup car at Riverside, California, in 1973.
The Olds nameplate first visited the Strictly Stock and later the Grand National Victory Lane 35 times from 1949 to 1952. Bill Rexford scored one of those wins en route to the 1950 NASCAR Strictly Stock championship. (Photo Courtesy General Motors)
79 New technologies mastered in World War II launched a wave of automobile innovation after the war. One wartime achievement was the development of aviation gasoline formulas that produced higher octane. By mating high-octane gas with higher compression limits, post-war automotive engineers at General Motors created a new overhead valve V-8 and introduced it in select 1949 Oldsmobile and Cadillac models. The 303-ci powerplant featured a shorter, stiffer cast-iron engine block housing, aluminum pistons, and forged steel crankshaft topped with a dual-plane intake manifold and 2-barrel downdraft carburetor. Power was rated at 135 ponies and it could push a 3,580-pound 1949 Olds Club Coupe from 0 to 60 mph in 13 seconds. The new combination (quickly coined The Rocket 88), was the “hot iron” on the block, winning five of eight 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock events. The ultimate success of the new engine spurred a wave of Big Three V-8 innovations with Chrysler introducing its Hemi V-8 in 1951 and Ford the Y-block in 1954.
80 The first NASCAR Strictly Stock race at Charlotte drew one of the most diverse fields of cars to ever grace a speedway. No less than nine makes were represented with Lincoln, Hudson, Oldsmobile, Buick, Chrysler, Ford, Mercury, and Cadillac in the 33-car field. The last of the original “NASCAR Nine” brands in the inaugural race were a pair of Kaisers, a 1948 driven by Buck Baker and a 1947 wheeled by John Barker. Baker finished 11th in his Penny Mullis Kaiser while Barker hammered his Ralph Chaney–owned Kaiser to a 15th-place finish. Baker drove a second Kaiser owned by Buddy Boehmen to a 23rd-place finish at Daytona in the second race of the 1949 season for his only two career starts in the brand. Chaney, meanwhile, helped keep Kaiser alive into 1951, posting six starts with four different drivers including Barker and Jim Paschal. Internal problems and a partnership breakup at Kaiser-Frazier in 1951 began a rapid decline for the brand, and subsequently its involvement in racing. Production of the Kaiser was discontinued in 1955.
81 On November 25, 1949, Cadillac produced its one-millionth vehicle, quite an accomplishment for the brand launched in 1902. Noted for its strong engines, the 1949 Cadillac shared the same powerful 303-ci platform as the Oldsmobile Rocket 88, making it a prime candidate as a NASCAR Strictly Stock racer that year. Frank Mundy drove the lone Caddy in the inaugural race at Charlotte finishing 30th in the 33-car field. Ethel Flock Mobley wheeled the single Cadillac to an 11th-place finish on the beach at Daytona in the second race of the year while Mundy and Bill Blair gave the brand its best season finish with a 4th and 5th, respectively, at Langhorne. While the 1949 Cadillac failed to win, it earned the consolation distinction of being the first vehicle to win Motor Trend magazine’s Car of the Year award.
82 After moving his family to Daytona Beach, Florida, Bill France Sr. took the job of operating a gas station at 316 Main Street. The station featured full drive-up service and an open-air service bay. Today, known as Main Street Station, a popular bar and music venue in Daytona Beach, the site is a popular attraction for NASCAR history buffs as well as a place to grab a long, cool one.
Bill France Sr. promoted the first stock car race at Jacksonville (Florida) Speedway Park March 23, 1947. France strides to the front of the starting field as a huge crowd looks on prior to Bill Snowden’s win. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
83 It’s no secret that even today, many Georgia racing fans believe Bill France Sr. “stole” NASCAR and shifted the epicenter of the sport from the Peach State to North Carolina. While there’s no real validation of the claim, the fact is that France scheduled 26 of 52 Modified Division races in the inaugural 1948 season in North Carolina. Meanwhile, only 12 races were held in Georgia. France later scheduled the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock debut race in Charlotte, the backyard of NSCRA honcho Bruton Smith.
84 Lakewood Speedway was one of the first racetracks to reopen after the conclusion of World War II, hosting its first post-war race on Labor Day, September 3, 1945. The event, featuring a National Hillbilly Jamboree and holiday fireworks show, was met with immediate resistance by the editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Ralph McGill. Backed by local Baptist and Methodist religious organizations, McGill campaigned to not allow “unsavory” moonshiners and racketeers to participate in the race, and went so far as enlisting Atlanta mayor William Hartsfield to ban five drivers (Roy Hall, Glen Hall, Bob Flock, Howard Farmer, and Jack Cantrell) from the race at Lakewood, the publicly owned Southern Fairgrounds property.
A giant debate played out in the pages of the AJC as fans voiced their displeasure over the fact that their heroes would not be able to race. The chorus got even louder when 30,000 fans showed up on race day as Mayor Hartsfield presented race promoter Mike Benton with a formal city protest. When Benton caved to Hartsfield’s pressure, the remaining drivers unanimously voted to not race unless the banned drivers were allowed to compete. The event was delayed for more than an hour and when the crowd grew restless and began chanting “We Want Hall, We Want Hall” Hartsfield and Benton, fearing a riot and backlash at the mayoral election polls the following day, agreed to allow all drivers to complete regardless of their police record. Ironically, Hall won the race. Great public fallout and a crackdown on activities at the Southern Fairgrounds site ultimately kept Lakeland Speedway from hosting another stock car event for more than a year.
Here’s a shot of Florida State Highway A1A just before the cars headed into the South Turn and back onto the beach at Daytona. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)
85 Seminole Speedway in Casselberry, Florida, hosted some of the first events promoted by Bill France Sr. after World War II. Shortly after the war ended, a group of local investors graded a quarter-mile track on the Orlando track property. With France on board as the promoter, Seminole Speedway held its first race December 2, 1945. France competed in the event and finished second to Atlanta’s Roy Hall. The track was quickly converted to a 1-mile dirt oval in January 1946 with its first event, (another Bill France production), taking place in February. War hero Red Byron wheeled a Raymond Parks Ford to a win over a star-studded field featuring Bob and Fonty Flock, Hall, France, and Marion McDonald. Over the next seven years, Seminole Speedway hosted numerous stock car and motorcycle racing events. Although the facility doesn’t show up in the record books as ever hosting a NASCAR-sanctioned race, the track (closed in 1954) played an important part in giving NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. the footing needed to launch the organization.
86 The Daytona Beach Road Course (DBRC) was up and running after World War II as Bill France Sr. staged and Roy Hall won a 33-lap, 100-mile stock car race in early 1946. France promoted several races on the same pre-war 3.2-mile DBRC layout before the 1948 season, when the course was changed and moved south to the less populated Ponce Inlet area. The new 2.2- and 4.2-mile tracks used the beach as its front straight and the Florida Highway A1A as the back chute, joined by a pair of treacherous hairpin turns. Initially, cars were to run the shorter track and motorcycles the longer oval, but due to the tendency of the short course to form sand dunes, it was abandoned after just one season. Red Byron won the first NASCAR-sanctioned event (the Rayson Memorial) on the short course on February 15, 1948, while Fonty Flock grabbed a second at the 1948 Buck Mathis Memorial 150 on the 2.2-mile track on August 8. All stock car races held on the Daytona Beach-Road Course from 1949 until it closed after the 1958 season were contested on the 4.2-mile layout.
87 Fans attending early NASCAR races at the Daytona Beach-Road Course knew exactly where to go to see most of the action; the South Turn. Located at the end of the paved Highway A1A back straight, cars at high speed often had trouble negotiating the sandy South Turn hairpin. Despite stripes painted on the highway to give drivers an idea of braking points, car after car overshot the turn and flipped over the sand dune at the top of the corner. As the race wore on and the ruts in the sand grew worse, the South Turn became littered with race cars. The fans watching from this area had to be on their toes and constantly scramble to stay out of the way at NASCAR’s first “calamity corner.”
88 While the Daytona Beach-Road Course is listed as the first race of the 1948 NASCAR Modified season, Bill France Sr. actually introduced his new organization with a non-points exhibition race at Pompano Beach Speedway in Florida January 4, 1948. Buddy Shuman won the event on the original 11⁄4-mile dirt Pompano Harness Track, built at a cost of $1.25 million in 1926. According to NASCAR records, Pompano Beach Speedway never hosted an official points-paying race, relegating it to a footnote as the track that hosted the first “unofficial” NASCAR event in 1948.
89 Built by moonshiners Pat and Harvey Charles during the summer of 1948, Charlotte Speedway was the site of the first NASCAR Strictly Stock race on June 19, 1949. The three-quarter-mile dirt track was located just off Little Rock Road on land leased from the C. C. Allison family. The track opened with a NASCAR Modified race on July 11, 1948, with Red Byron wheeling a Raymond Parks–owned Ford to victory. Less than a year later, Bill France Sr. changed the course of stock car racing history with the first NASCAR Strictly Stock race. In an ironic twist of fate, neither Pat nor Harvey Charles attended the inaugural NSS race as both were in prison after a 1949 bootlegging conviction.
90 In an effort to attract as many racers as possible to his first NASCAR Strictly Stock race at Charlotte, Bill France Sr. posted a total purse of $5,000, a giant sum of money in 1949 (approximately $50,000 in today’s money). Jim Roper took home the biggest chunk of the kitty earning $2,000 for winning, Fonty Flock got $1,000 for second, and 10th-place finisher Jimmy Thompson got $100. Those placing 15 through 20 got $25 for their efforts while the remainder of the field, positions 21 through 33, went home empty-handed.
91 Martinsville Speedway (Virginia) owns the distinction of being the only track on today’s NASCAR tour to have held an event during the sanctioning body’s inaugural 1948 season. One of many tracks carved out of the rich, red clay of southern Virginia, H. Clay Earles shaped the small and narrow Martinsville half-mile oval out of a 30-acre cornfield and opened September 7, 1947. A crowd estimated at 10,000 descended on the 750-seat track to see Red Bryon wheel a Raymond Parks 1939 Ford to a 200-lap, 100-mile race win. Less than a year later, Martinsville hosted its first NASCAR-sanctioned event. The July 4, 1948, holiday race (the 26th event on the 1948 NASCAR Modified tour) saw Fonty Flock score one of his division-high 11 wins again driving a Parks Ford to victory.
The success of the 1948 race prompted Bill France Sr. to partner with Earles and Martinsville to make it one of the original eight speedways to host a 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock inaugural season race. The sixth race on the tour, the September 25 Martinsville SS race drew an estimated 10,000 fans as Red Byron pushed his 1949 Oldsmobile into the lead on the 104th circuit and rolled to a three-lap win over Lee Petty, Ray Erickson, and Clyde Minter. The early success of the two emerging concerns (Martinsville Speedway and NASCAR) along with the personal friendship between France and Earles forged a mutually beneficial partnership that continues today.
Bill France Sr. works the stopwatch as Red Byron crosses the finish line during time trials at a 1948 NASCAR Modified race at Greensboro Agricultural Fairgrounds Speedway (North Carolina). (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
92 Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney lent financial support to build Heidelberg Speedway just southwest of Pittsburgh in 1947. In 1949, Bill France Sr. wanted to bring his Strictly Stock brand to the northeast and Heidelberg’s half-mile dirt oval proved to be a willing partner. Lee Petty scored his first NASCAR win in front of a large crowd on October 2, 1949. The 200-lap race took 1:44:25 to complete and Petty averaged 57.458 mph over the 100-mile distance. Dick Linder was second in a Kaiser (ultimately the best finish ever for the brand in NASCAR) with Bill Rexford, Sam Rice, and Sara Christian rounding out the top five.
Heidelberg wasn’t part of the 1950 and 1951 Strictly Stock schedules, but returned to the Grand National ranks in 1952 where Herb Thomas scored a dominating win by leading 179 of 200 laps in Hubert Westmoreland’s 1951 Oldsmobile. Heidelberg’s next NASCAR race wasn’t until 1956 when Joe Weatherly topped a 22-car NASCAR Convertible Division field. The track took its last major NASCAR bows with Grand National (now Sprint Cup) races in 1959 (Jim Reed) and 1960 (Lee Petty). NASCAR’s final appearance at the now paved track was the Heidelberg-Gulf 100 Grand National East race August 2, 1973. Tommy Collela, the promoter of the track at the time, won the race in his first and only NASCAR career start. Collela closed Heidelberg Speedway after the 1973 season.
93 Fonty Flock must have been happy that Bill France Sr. flew an air-plane. While winging his way to a meeting, France flew over an old horse track on a large expanse of land near Hillsboro, North Carolina. France and his investor group built a 1-mile dirt track on the site in 1947 and Occoneechee Speedway hosted its first NASCAR race (a Modified division event) June 7, 1948. Flock won the race and two other Modified events, dominating NASCAR races that season. Flock finished fourth behind his brother Bob in the third race of the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock season. The event drew an estimated crowd of 17,500 and cemented a spot on the NASCAR schedule, hosting at least one race each year throughout the 1968 season. On September 15, 1968, a crowd of 6,700 watched Richard Petty take the Hillsboro 150 Grand National race, beating James Hylton by seven laps, at the last NASCAR checkered flag at the now Orange Speedway. France shut the track down after facing opposition from local religious leaders over Sunday events at the track and replaced the 1969 Orange Speedway dates with runs at Talledega, the newest NASCAR track owned by France.
94 Not every early NASCAR race was a classic. The 1948 Modified Series 200-mile race at Langhorne Speedway (Pennsylvania) proved to be a snoozer as Al Keller won by one of stock car racing’s all-time largest margins, 18 laps, over runner-up Buck Barr. Keller’s Ford led 76 laps of the race covering the distance in a time of 3:17:05. Only 14 of the 48 starting cars finished the event.
Bill France Sr. promoted his first race outside the state of Florida, helping to reopen Greenville-Pickens Speedway July 4, 1946, with a National Championship Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC) event. (Photo Courtesy Gober Sosebee Family)
95 Greenville-Pickens Speedway in Greenville, South Carolina, is a long-time NASCAR track, tracing its roots back to NASCAR Modified Division races in the early 1950s. An early haven for Georgia and South Carolina racers, Greenville-Pickens opened as a half-mile dirt track in 1940 but quickly shut down with the start of World War II. Reconfigured to a quarter-mile, the track reopened July 4, 1946, with a Modified stock car event (the first promoted outside of Florida by Bill France Sr.) and won by Ed Samples of Atlanta. France and NASCAR were shut out of Greenville in the late 1940s and early 1950s when other Modified racing organizations, including the South Carolina Racing Association, were being featured at the track. On October 6, 1955, Tim Flock piloted the famous Carl Kiekhaefer-owned Chrysler No. 300 to a win in G-P’s first NASCAR Grand National event. Greenville-Pickens went on to host 28 Grand National races over the next 16 seasons, including the final race June 26, 1971, won by Richard Petty. Over the years, Greenville-Pickens hosted nine different NASCAR division events, the most recent being the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. The track is also part of the NASCAR Home Tracks program and hosts weekly NASCAR late model stock car races each summer.
96 Enoch Staley was an early convert to Bill France Sr.’s vision of stock car racing, and decided to build North Wilkesboro Speedway in 1946 as long as France organized and promoted his races. With a budget of $1,500, Staley quickly ran out of money leading to the track’s odd and now-iconic shape with its downhill front straight and uphill back chute. France staged his first race at North Wilkesboro (a National Championship Stock Car Circuit Modified event) May 18, 1947, with Fonty Flock capturing the win in front of an estimated 10,000 fans. In 1948, North Wilkesboro hosted 6 of the 52 events in NASCAR’s inaugural Modified season tour. Curtis Turner was the early master winning 3 of the 6 events with Red Byron earning 2 victories and Marshall Teague winning 1. North Wilkesboro was one of the original eight tracks on the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock tour, hosting the final race of the season. The October 16 clash on the then-half-mile dirt oval saw Bill Blair pace the 22-car field for most of the event. Unfortunately, his Cadillac suffered an engine problem allowing Bob Flock’s 1949 Oldsmobile to lead the final 20 laps to his first NASCAR Strictly Stock Series victory.
Weldon Adams (72) rolls his Plymouth stocker onto the track to practice for the 1951 Wilkes County 150 at North Wilkesboro (North Carolina) Speedway. Also identifiable here are the Hudson of Lou Figaro (33) and Ed Massey’s Plymouth (4). (Photo Courtesy R. W. Hopkins)
97 The 1946 American Automobile Association “Big Car” season featured events at the top racetracks of the post-war era including Lakewood, Trenton, Winchester, Reading, Langhorne, Williams Grove, Dayton, and Flemington Speedways. Located on the Erie County Fairgrounds site, Hamburg Speedway regularly hosted auto racing before and after the war. The AAA circuit was a regular visitor to Hamburg with four races from 1946 to 1948 before NASCAR came to town in 1949. The September 18 event, the fifth race of the inaugural NASCAR Strictly Stock season, drew a crowd of more than 11,000 fans to the town of just 6,938 residents. Jack White won the race. In the 1950 NASCAR Strictly Stock event, Dick Linder spun and won in front of 8,363 at Hamburg. The 1950 Hamburg race was held the week before the debut of Darlington Raceway and the Southern 500 changed the axis for small tracks such as Hamburg forever. Hamburg was left off the 1951 race schedule and never hosted a major NASCAR event again. The track stayed open for more than 40 years, hosting multiple divisions of car and motorcycle racing highlighted by the DIRTCar Modifieds in the 1980s and the Empire State Sprint cars in the 1990s. Hamburg Speedway closed in September 1997.
98 NASCAR’s inaugural 1949 season proved to be a big winner with the ticket-buying public as all eight-races reported attendance of more than 10,000 fans. The hands-down winner of the gate receipt race was the fourth event of the year at which more than 20,000 fans jammed Langhorne Speedway. That race also drew the biggest field of cars with 45 machines taking the green flag.
99 Lakewood Speedway wasn’t on the 1949 Strictly Stock schedule, but the track did host a pair of “new car” races that season with great success. Bill France Sr. allowed NASCAR drivers to race in the non-points event at Lakewood held one week after Red Byron won the NASCAR Strictly Stock title. An announced crowd of 33,452 jammed into the Atlanta track and watched Tim Flock steer his Oldsmobile past Curtis Turner with 27 laps remaining and take home $1,650 in first-place prize money. Because of the success of that event, a second race at Lakewood was scheduled for November 13. That day, 22,000 fans showed up only to be disappointed when rain cut the race short after just 39 laps. One week later, when the event was called again after 110 laps because of darkness, June Cleveland was declared the winner; it was Cleveland’s first win in any stock car event.
100 Built at a cost of $100,000 as part of a 1937 Great Depression works project, Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, originally hosted football games and trotting horse races on the quarter-mile track surrounding the football field. The track was paved for auto racing in 1947 and Bill France Sr. was among the first to take advantage of it, staging a NASCAR Modified race May 18, 1949, won by Fonty Flock. Bowman Gray went on to host 28 NASCAR Grand National Division races from 1958 to 1971. Bob Welborn won the first in a 1957 Chevrolet and Bobby Allison won the last in a 1970 Ford. Meanwhile, BGS also hosted NASCAR Convertible, Grand National East, Goody’s Dash Series, K&N Pro East, and Whelen Southern Modified Tour events over the years. Today, the weekly Saturday night NASCAR Whelan Modified Southern Series races draw massive crowds and are a bucket-list item for fans yet to attend a race there.
101 Before the formation of NASCAR at the end of 1947, Bill France Sr. promoted races under two different association names. The first was as series director of the National Champion Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC). France even had a slogan for the group, “Where the Fastest That Run, Run the Fastest.” France also promoted some events that season under the Stock Car Auto Racing Society. That title didn’t last long as a stock car tour named SCARS wasn’t exactly the image France wanted to promote.
102 After taking his idea of a national stock car championship to the American Automobile Association in late 1946 only to have the idea turned down, Bill France Sr. launched the National Championship Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC). France and the NCSCC announced a slate of 40 events to begin at Daytona Beach, Florida, in January end in Jacksonville, in December 1947. In between, the NCSCC hit every track it could from Columbus, Georgia, to North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to Langhorne, Pennsylvania. In the end, Fonty Flock won the 1947 NCSCC championship on the strength of 11 victories in 24 series starts. In keeping with his vision of a structured, professional national series, France awarded Flock a $1,000 championship bonus and a 4-foot trophy. As promised, he also paid $3,000 in point-fund money to other drivers in the series.
Along with establishing the NCSCC’s structure as a new stock car racing standard, several 1947 NCSCC races significantly exceeded attendance and profit expectations. In the end, the overall success of the NCSCC proved to France that his ideas about organized stock car racing were on point and gave him the confidence needed to take the next step and schedule a meeting at the Streamline Hotel in December 1947 and begin the formation of NASCAR.
Bill France Sr. (center) and Daytona Beach mayor William Perry (left) present the 1946 National Champion Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC) season championship trophy to Ed Samples. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
103 With Atlanta’s Lakewood Speedway serving as the racing hub of Georgia, dozens of small tracks staged events in front of ever-growing numbers of enthusiastic fans in the 1940s. Unfortunately, not all competitors and fans were welcome at these events and were often denied access. Undaunted, African-American racers from around Georgia formed the Atlanta Stock Car Club (ASCC) shortly after World War II. ASCC races featured Modified Stock Cars (the same late 1930s Ford coupes that dominated southern racing at the time) and flamboyant drivers including Richard “Red” Kines, Arthur “The Decatur Express” Avery, Robert “Juckie” Lewis, and James “Suicide” Lacey. In the early 1950s, ASCC races often drew overflow crowds, many coming on organized bus tours to ensure their safety. Eventually, changing times and legal decisions such as the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court Brown versus Board of Education ruling eliminating “separate but equal” policies in schools played a large part in eliminating the need for groups such as the ASCC, which folded mid-decade.
104 Christened Truman Fontello Flock, “Fonty” delivered moonshine on his bicycle as a teenager in his native Fort Payne, Alabama. Later, Flock discovered an emerging stock car racing culture while running moonshine to Atlanta and began to compete in events throughout the south in the late 1930s. After his first big win at Lakewood Speedway in 1940, Flock’s driving career seemingly ended with a massive wreck on the beach at Daytona in 1941 which left him with head and back injuries as well as a crushed chest and broken pelvis. Flock eventually returned to racing May 5, 1947, sweeping the field by setting fast time, winning his heat, and the 30-lap National Championship Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC) main event in the first race held at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Amazingly, Flock went on to win seven 1947 NCSCC events, beating Ed Samples and Red Byron for the NCSCC season championship.
Flock won a division-high 15 Modified Division races in NASCAR’s inaugural 1948 season only to finish second to Byron in the final championship standings. In 1949, Flock won the NASCAR Modified season crown on the strength of 11 wins. That same year, he also participated in six NASCAR Strictly Stock races and finished fifth in the points. Flock’s greatest years came in the 1950s by competing in 148 NASCAR Grand National events from 1950 through 1957. His greatest season, 1951, came when he posted eight wins, 22 top-10s, 13 pole positions, and a second-place finish in the championship battle.
After another bad wreck at Daytona in 1957 (a crash that claimed the life of Bobby Myers) Flock retired from racing. He finished his career with 19 Grand National victories and one Convertible Division triumph. Fonty Flock passed away in Atlanta on July 15, 1972.
105 Colorado-born Robert “Red” Byron was one of the most unlikely heroes of post-war stock car racing. After 57 missions as tail-gunner on a B-24 bomber during World War II, Byron’s plane was shot down over the Aleutian Islands leaving him with crippling injuries to his left leg. Told he would never walk again, Byron was in military hospitals for more than two years. Byron, who had raced before the war, returned to the sport in 1946 and promptly won his first three races by anchoring his injured leg in a steel stirrup bolted to the clutch pedal. A year later, he finished third in the National Championship Stock Car Circuit championship promoted by Bill France Sr. and winning nine races in the process. Byron was all but unstoppable in 1948, winning the first NASCAR-sanctioned race at Daytona and 10 other events while posting 23 top-3 finishes to earn the inaugural NASCAR Modified championship. He went on to capture two more events and the title in NASCAR’s inaugural 1949 Strictly Stock season. Byron ran only nine NASCAR events after the 1949 championship season, retiring due to health issues in 1951. He died in 1960 at the age of 44 and in 1998, was named one of the top 50 drivers in the first 50 years of NASCAR.
Red Byron, teamed with car owner Raymond Parks and mechanic Red Vogt, captured both the 1948 NASCAR Modified title and the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock crown. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)
106 You won’t find Wilton Garrison listed among Big Bill France’s inner circle of trusted advisors, but he may have been responsible for rekindling France’s interest in creating something more than a regional racing empire. Shortly after auto racing resumed in 1945, France decided to stage a stock car race at Southern States Fairgrounds in Charlotte. France pitched it as a “national championship” race to Garrison, the sports editor of the Charlotte Observer at the time. Garrison told France that he didn’t believe you could have a national championship based on one event. If France was going to use that kind of promotion, Garrison indicated there had to be a league with a season schedule, point standings, and prize money in order to determine a national champion. Garrison’s observations left an impression on France and he incorporated many items into the formation of the NCSCC in 1946 and NASCAR in 1947.
107 Located at 140 South Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach, Florida, the Streamline Hotel today stands as the birthplace of NASCAR. The Streamline, named for its rakish art deco lines and interior themes, opened in 1941 as a four-story, 47-room marvel of the times, the first fireproof building in Daytona and the home of the city’s first bomb shelter. The lavish hotel was topped by the Ebony Room, a rooftop bar where Bill France Sr. conducted the now-famous December 14, 1947, meeting that led to the formation of NASCAR. Through the years, the Streamline fell into disrepair and disfavor as newer, bigger, and more modern beachfront hotels grabbed customers away from the dated hotel. Since then, the Streamline has served as a youth hostel, a religious retirement home, and an alternative lifestyle bar in an effort to avoid the wrecking ball. In 2014, a development group purchased the Streamline for $950,000 with the intent to restore the hotel (complete with first-floor NASCAR-themed bar) and surrounding property. The renovated hotel and grounds were scheduled to open on April 1, 2017.
Fonty Flock celebrates the 1947 National Championship Stock Car Circuit Modified Division title along with Ed Samples and Bill France Sr. in the rooftop Ebony Room bar at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
108 After the formation of NASCAR in 1947, the company was run from Bill France Sr.’s house at 29 Goodall Avenue in Daytona Beach. Later, the company moved into its first corporate headquarters, an old bank building located at 42 Peninsular Drive in Daytona Beach. The 4,000 square foot building was built in 1920, and cost $40 per month to rent.
109 Sam Nunis traveled the country in the 1920s to learn the business of staging auto races from legendary IndyCar promoter Ralph Hankinson. Like Hankinson, Nunis concentrated on Indy-Car and open-wheel race promotion throughout his career, but he also shared Bill France Sr.’s vision of what stock car racing could be. Like France, Nunis lobbied the American Automobile Association to sanction stock car races in the 1940s. When Nunis got the cold shoulder from the AAA, he helped found the National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA) in 1946. Nunis, who conducted most of his business in the front seat of his trademark Lincoln Continental, also controlled the promotional efforts of dozens of racetracks on the East Coast, including Trenton and Lakewood Speedways. He continued to promote Trenton into the 1970s before health concerns forced him to retire in 1973. Nunis succumbed to long-term lung and heart disease in 1980.
110 Early auto racing provided little safety for drivers or fans. That played out tragically on July 25, 1948, when Slick Davis flipped his 1937 Chevrolet several times while racing at Greensboro Speedway (North Carolina) and became the first driver fatally injured in a NASCAR-sanctioned race. Tragedy struck again that same day at another NASCAR-sanctioned event in Columbus, Georgia, when Red Byron’s car blew a tire and plowed off the track into the crowd. Seven-year-old Roy Brannon was killed and 16 other people were injured. The twin fatalities had little effect on safety; real reform didn’t come until the 1950s.
111 Although NASCAR was formed in 1947 and crowned a Modified champion in 1948, it wasn’t the only game in town. The new organization had plenty of rivals in the race for sanctioning supremacy. No less than four major groups, including the American Stock Car Racing Association (ASCRA), National Auto Racing League (NARL), National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA), and United Stock Car Racing Association (USCRA), all staged national championship events and tallied points systems in 1948. The glut of racing organizations staging the same basic events was said to have been the spark that ignited Bill France Sr. to try something different in 1949, the NASCAR Strictly Stock division.
112 Bill France Sr. and NASCAR ruled the fledgling sport with an iron fist. France saw the need for rules on the track and rules for behavior away from it. For the inaugural 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock race at Charlotte, France would not let Marshall Teague, Buddy Shuman, Ed Samples, or Jimmy and Speedy Thompson enter the race. Teague, NASCAR’s original treasurer in 1947, had multiple disagreements with France over prize money, campaigning for 40 percent of the gate receipts instead of a flat-dollar-number posted purse. He and Jimmy Thompson had also filed entries for a NASCAR race and then competed in another event that same day. Meanwhile, Shuman, Speedy Thompson, and Samples (all who ran races other than NASCAR-sanctioned events on occasion) all supported Teague’s prize money movement and were reportedly suspended because they were nabbed placing thumb tacks on the track prior to a NASCAR Modified race a couple of weeks earlier. In announcing his decision to deny the offenders entry in the Charlotte race, France indicated that the drivers exhibited “conduct detrimental to the best interests of the National Association of Stock Car Racing.” It is a phrase that countless drivers who run afoul of NASCAR have heard since then.
113 If you were interested in participating in NASCAR’s inaugural 1948 season events, you had to pay for it. For $10, NASCAR provided its members with an identification card, NASCAR membership pin, and newsletter. Also included were a NASCAR car decal and a $10 book of 20 coupons, each worth a 50-cent admission discount at 1948 NASCAR-sanctioned races.
The first NASCAR Strictly Stock race at Charlotte in 1949 included Sara Christian. Seen here are Christian and her husband/car owner Frank with their NASCAR SS Oldsmobile stocker. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)
114 Danica Patrick and all of the other female drivers who have graced NASCAR are spiritual descendants of NASCAR’s first woman driver, Sara Christian. Christian proved her 14th-place finish in the inaugural 1949 Strictly Stock race was more than a novelty; she notched a 5th-place finish in the sixth 200-mile Strictly Stock event on the ultra-tough Langhorne Speedway oval. The crowd was so awed by Christian’s effort that she was escorted to Victory Lane where Curtis Turner graciously stood aside to allow fans to cheer Christian. In her next race one month later, Christian posted an even better effort wheeling her 1949 Ford to a fifth-place finish in a race at Heidelberg Raceway outside of Pittsburgh. Christian finished 14th in the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock points championship. Unfortunately, her career as a NASCAR driver was short-lived as she was seriously injured in an NSCRA race at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta after the conclusion of the 1949 NASCAR season. Christian broke her back in the wreck, barrel-rolling her car seven times. With urging from her family to quit, Christian raced just once more in 1950 running a NASCAR Strictly Stock 100-miler on the half-mile dirt Hamburg Speedway (New York), and finished 14th again, just as in her first race.
115 Sometimes, to beat them, you have to join them. That’s what Bill France Sr. decided to do when he allowed NASCAR to cosanction an event with the National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA) in 1949. The “Strictly Stock” concept wasn’t exclusive to NASCAR as Lakewood Speedway promoter Sam Nunis and NSCRA announced a 150-mile SS race for October 23. France worked with Nunis to permit a NASCAR co-sanction of the race, allowing top Georgia drivers to compete in the Atlanta race. However, no NASCAR championship points were awarded. Georgia’s favorite son Tim Flock didn’t disappoint the giant Peach State crowd of more than 33,000 fans and wheeled a 1949 Olds to victory.
116 NASCAR’s early female drivers got their start in racing thanks to a rival sanctioning organization, the South Carolina Racing Association. The series, founded by former Bill France Sr. supporter Joe Littlejohn, started racing at Greenville-Pickens, Columbia, and Hub City (Spartanburg) in 1949. The schedule of events often featured a 10- or 15-lap “Powder Puff” race for the women prior to the stock car feature event. Sara Christian won several of these early girl-power races, beating out other women racers including Louise Smith, Ruby Flock, and Mildred Williams.
117 Bill France Sr. knew Louis Ossinski played football for Georgia and also coached the nearby Seabreeze High School football team. France also knew Ossinski was a lawyer who just happened to have an office across the street from his filling station. When France needed a lawyer to attend the meeting at the Streamline Hotel and later file the documents to incorporate NASCAR, it was a short walk to find him. Ossinsky proved to be the man for the job and on February 21, 1948, he completed the necessary paperwork making NASCAR a private corporation. For handling the legal part, Ossinsky was given 10 percent of the new company. France owned 50 percent while Bill Tuthill, NASCAR’s new secretary, had 40 a percent share in the venture. France later bought out Tuthill and partner Ed Otto. Ossinsky was the last outstanding NASCAR shareholder until his death in 1971 when France bought up the remaining 16.6 percentage owned by Ossinsky’s heirs, giving France 100 percent control of NASCAR.
118 Erwin “Cannonball” Baker made a name for himself by making more than 140 cross-country motorcycle and automobile speed runs during the 1920s and 1930s promoting early brands and products. A champion dirt track motorcycle racer from Indiana, Baker also drove in the 1922 Indianapolis 500 and held more than 100 land speed records. Baker had all the criteria Bill France Sr. wanted in a person and was chosen to serve as the first NASCAR “National Honorary Commissioner of Racing” in 1947. Baker served until being replaced by Harley Earl, GM’s design wizard and friend of Bill Sr. Baker died of a heart attack in 1960 at the age of 78. The now-famous Cannonball Run transcontinental motor race and Hollywood movie of the same name were attributed to Baker. He is enshrined in the Automotive Hall of Fame, the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame.
119 At the inaugural 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock race in Charlotte, the job of “Top Cop” (NASCAR Head Technical Inspector) fell to Al Crisler. A noted and well-respected mechanic and motorcycle racer, Crisler was a Piedmont Airlines captain and lived near the airport and Charlotte Speedway. Crisler had strong character and was often called “Captain” or “Major” by those around him. In the first race at Charlotte, it was Crisler’s pre-race job to make sure all the cars were as stock as possible and checking for any slight modifications. His post-race tech was to make sure the stock integrity of the vehicle was still intact. Unfortunately for Glenn Dunaway, who won the race, Crisler found the rear springs on Dunaway’s Ford had been altered. Several hours after the event, Crisler disqualified Dunaway. That decision meant that Jim Roper would forever be known as the winner of NASCAR’s landmark event.
Hollywood actor and nationally syndicated radio host Edward Everett Horton (right) presents Ed Samples with the 1949 National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA) championship trophy. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
120 One of the top moonshine runners of the day, Georgia’s Ed Samples almost didn’t have a racing career. Shot three times in 1944 over a moonshine deal gone bad, Samples (who had dabbled in stock car racing prior to World War II) proved to be one the sport’s biggest stars after the war. Samples’ biggest wins included first race at Greenville-Pickens Speedway on July 4, 1946, and the National Championship Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC) on the Daytona Beach Road Course on June 30 that year. Samples, the 1946 National Champion of Stock Car Racing, finished second in France Sr.’s fledgling modified stock car circuit in 1947.
While Samples attended the famed Streamline Hotel NASCAR organizational meeting in December 1947, he wasn’t an early supporter and instead chose to race in the South Carolina Racing Association (SCRA) in 1948, winning the division’s championship on the strength of 10-straight victories at one point of the season. A year later, Samples was banned from NASCAR competition and the inaugural Strictly Stock race at Charlotte because he had competed in a National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA) race the same weekend as a NASCAR event. Undaunted, he captured the 1949 NSCRA Strictly Stock title and was again leading the NSCRA points when the division shut down midway through the 1951 season.
Over the next three years, Samples concentrated on short-track racing, and won the 1954 and 1955 Birmingham (Alabama) Racing Club championships. Meanwhile, he made 13 NASCAR Grand National starts from 1951 to 1954, his best finish a second at Lakewood in 1952. Samples hung up his helmet in 1956 and lived in the Birmingham area until his death in 1991.
121 Most people know that Glenn Dunaway finished last in the first NASCAR Strictly Stock race, but most don’t that he did the same in the second race as well. After winning at Charlotte and then being disqualified in post-race tech, the Gastonia, North Carolina, driver and his Hubert Westmoreland–owned 1947 Ford were credited with last place, 33rd. In the second 1949 Strictly Stock event at the Daytona Beach Road Course on July 10, Dunaway and his 1949 Mercury were the first to fall out, and came in last, 28th, in the final rundown. Dunaway fared better later in the season by picking up three straight top-10 finishes in a 1949 Olds on the way to a ninth-place finish in the final 1949 point standings.
122 Martinsville, Virginia, native Sam Rice has several distinctions in the annals of NASCAR. Rice introduced H. Clay Earles to stock car racing and convinced him to build Martinsville Speedway in 1947. Rice, an original partner in the track, was also an early NASCAR team owner fielding 60 Strictly Stock/Grand National entries from 1949 to 1959. His cars won twice: once in 1950 when Bill Blair wheeled Rice’s Mercury to a win at Vernon Speedway and again that year when Fireball Roberts piloted an Oldsmobile to victory at Occoneechee Speedway near Hillsboro, North Carolina. Rice’s other connection came as a driver when he competed in the inaugural 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock race starting 14th and finishing 4th in an Oldsmobile. Later that year, Rice again climbed behind the wheel of one of his cars, a Chevrolet, and finished 4th in the Heidelberg (Pittsburgh) Speedway Strictly Stock race. The two races (twin 4th-place finishes) were the only starts of Rice’s NASCAR driving career.
123 Bill France Sr. knew he needed star power if he was going to sell the idea of the first NASCAR race to the ticket-buying public in Charlotte. Never shy to go after the biggest fish in the pond, France enlisted the help of Charlotte radio legend Grady Cole. Cole, a laid-back, down-home Southern type, had dominated the Charlotte airwaves for nearly two decades when France came calling in 1949. Cole’s WBT Radio morning show was the most listened-to program in Charlotte at all times of the day. France wanted the audience and enlisted Cole to hype his race by making him a co-owner with Bruce Griffin on the car driven by Fonty Flock. On race day, Cole addressed the crowd he helped create and gave the command to start engines over the public address system. Cole remained a friend to NASCAR for years afterwards. His contributions to establishing NASCAR awareness with the general public, especially those in regard to the first Strictly Stock race, should not be overlooked or underestimated.
124 If Jim Roper didn’t read the newspaper every day; he might never have won the first NASCAR Strictly Stock race. Roper found out about the race thanks to a mention of the event in The Adventures of Smilin’ Jack comic strip. A local roadster champion, Roper decided to enter the race and drove a 1949 Lincoln to Charlotte from Kansas for the June 19, 1949, contest. Roper was declared the winner after Glenn Dunaway was disqualified. Two months later, Roper made his only other career NASCAR start driving the same Millard Clothier–owned Lincoln to a 15th-place finish at Occoneechee Speedway. Roper continued to race until an injury in a sprint car race at Davenport, Iowa, ended his career in 1955. Roper passed away in Newton, Kansas, in 2000.
125 The second-ever NASCAR Strictly Stock race at the Daytona Beach-Road Course on July 10, 1949, holds the distinction of being the only event in NASCAR history featuring four siblings. On that day, brothers Fonty, Bob, Tim Flock along with sister Ethel Mobley took the green flag with Tim posting the best finish, a 2nd behind winner Red Byron. Meanwhile, Ethel took bragging rights over brothers Fonty and Bob with an 11th-place finish (Fonty was 19th, while Bob came home 22nd). That day remains the only time a brother and sister competed against each other in NASCAR’s top division.
126 Jack White made his first and only start of the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock season a good one by winning at Hamburg Speedway September 18. The fifth race of eight that year, a 200-lap event, drew just 16 cars. That didn’t stop more than 11,000 fans from pouring into the Hamburg half-mile dirt oval to see White take the lead on lap 134 when race-long front-runner Glenn Dunaway lost a wheel. White led the remainder of the race, winning and taking home the $1,500 top prize. White went on to make 11 more NASCAR starts over the next two seasons, but never again realized his winning form, posting just one other top-5 finish. White’s final NASCAR race was August 24, 1951, when he came in 41st a Grand National event at Morristown Speedway (New Jersey), earning $10 in prize money for the finish.
127 Ask any NASCAR old-timer who the most naturally gifted driver was and you will most likely receive Curtis Turner as the answer. Turner’s first attempt at a racetrack was a 1946 race in Mount Airy, North Carolina. When the race was canceled due to a lack of cars, Turner (a fan at the event) jumped into his 1940 Ford, drove onto the track, and put on a show of impressive power slides and doughnuts. The crowd went crazy and “filled the hat,” showering Turner with money afterward. A lumberjack by trade, Turner quickly jumped into racing full throttle and by 1948 was a star in the new NASCAR Modified Division.
128 NASCAR reported that 50 drivers competed in at least one NASCAR Strictly Stock race in 1949. Ken Wagner had the distinction of finishing last in the season championship standings after competing in three 1949 events: Martinsville, Heidelberg, and North Wilkesboro. The Pennington, New Jersey, driver won the pole for the North Wilkesboro race and his best effort was an 11th-place finish at Martinsville. Wagner’s season winnings were $100.
129 December 14, 1949, will always be remembered in stock car racing history as the demarcation day for NASCAR. Bill France Sr. concluded four days of meetings at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida, on that date, with the result being the formation of NASCAR. The meetings, attended by 35 promoters and drivers from around the country (labeled “assorted hustlers” by Daytona Beach sportswriter Benny Kahn), laid the groundwork for a unified national stock car racing circuit.
Raymond Parks was a regular in the Ebony Room bar atop the Streamline Hotel as Bill France Sr. enjoyed using the Daytona Beach, Florida, facility for meetings and awards banquets. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)
130 On the final day of the 1947 NASCAR organizational meetings, the group took several votes. One named Bill France Sr. as the president of the organization. A second vote was taken to name the new group. Initially, the preferred moniker was the National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA), but that was quickly voted down in part to the name being used by another organization in Georgia. The second reason for the dismissal was due to the fact that Georgia NSCRA was becoming an adversary of France’s new venture. Atlanta mechanic Red Vogt suggested the group be called the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). This time, the vote passed giving the group its new name. Later, “of” was changed to “for.”
131 The first officially sanctioned NASCAR race was held at Daytona Beach on February 15, 1948. The event drew a field of 62 cars to the Daytona Beach-Road Course with 50 of them taking the green flag. Named the Rayson Memorial, a 68-lap race on the 2.2-mile beach road course (149.6 miles), was won by Red Byron in a 1939 Ford coupe owned by Raymond Parks. Byron earned $1,000 first-place prize money, while Marshall Teague, the only other car to run all 68 laps, earned $650 for his effort. Only 12 of the 50 starters finished.
132 Easily the strongest challenger to NASCAR in the late 1940s was the National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA), an Atlanta-based sanctioning body incorporated March 27, 1947, by Sam Nunis and Weyman Milam. At first, the NSCRA worked in conjunction with other sanctioning groups, but that changed in 1948 when Charlotte businessman O. Bruton Smith took control of the organization. Smith, the promoter of Concord Speedway, immediately butted heads with France, accusing him of scheduling NASCAR races up against his NSCRA events at Concord.
Later in 1948, Smith directly challenged France, announcing that the NSCRA would sanction a Strictly Stock championship in 1949. The move prompted France into launching his own Strictly Stock division and debuted in Charlotte (Smith’s hometown) for spite. Meanwhile, the NSCRA conducted its own Strictly Stock season with Ed Samples winning the championship. Buddy Shuman (the 1948 NSCRA Modified champion) captured the 1950 NSCRA Strictly Stock title.
While competition from NASCAR was stiff, it may have been the Korean conflict that spelled the demise of the NSCRA. Smith was drafted into service in 1951 and with him went much of the NSCRA’s organization and determination to fight France and NASCAR. When NSCRA founder Nunis broke ranks during the summer of 1951 and announced that a NASCAR Grand National race would be held at Atlanta’s Lakewood Speedway. The NSCRA was finished. Milam disbanded the organization shortly after Nunis’ announcement and the NSCRA could only sit back and watch the group fade into history. A crowd of more than 25,000 cheered Georgia’s favorite son, Tim Flock, to victory in the November NASCAR GN event.
133 The 1948 NASCAR Modified championship season featured 52 events from February 15 at Daytona Beach through November 14 in Columbus, Georgia. In a show of dominance, a Ford won each of the 52 races as Red Byron, Fonty Flock, Bob Flock, Skip Hersey, Gober Sosebee, Bill Blair, Johnny Rogers, Marshall Teague, Paul Pappy, Tim Flock, Curtis Turner, Billy Carden, Al Keller, and Buddy Shuman all wheeled a blue oval Flathead V-8 coupe to victory at least once that year. Fonty Flock led with 14 wins while Byron, the division champion, had 11 victories. With Byron and the Flocks driving his Fords, Raymond Parks was NASCAR’s first team champion owner.
134 Bill France Sr. and his new organization knew they had something big on their hands when more than 14,000 fans paid $2.50 to witness the first NASCAR-sanctioned race at Daytona Beach on February 15, 1948. The financial and artistic success of that first race at Daytona set the tone for France and NASCAR throughout the 1948 season.
135 Right from the start, Bill France Sr. adopted an aggressive marketing strategy for NASCAR by staging events in more than one location on the same day. In the equivalent of a Sprint Cup event in Atlanta, Richmond, and Pocono, NASCAR also ran events at Macon (Georgia), Danville (Virginia), and Dover (New Jersey), on May 23, 1948. All three races awarded points toward the 1948 NASCAR Modified Championship. Gober Sosebee grabbed the win and points at Macon while Bill Blair rolled to the win at Danville. Johnny Rogers completed the NASCAR tripleheader by coming in first at Dover.
136 In addition to staging events in multiple locations on the same day, NASCAR also featured doubleheaders at some of its 1948 Modified Series events. At the September 5 race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Curtis Turner won a pair of 30-lap feature events. Driving a Ford for team owner Bob Smith, Curtis captured the pole and beat Jimmy Ingram to win the first 30-lapper. In the second race, Turner started 14th (shotgun on the field after a full-field inversion) and raced through the field to win the second race of the day. This marks the first time in NASCAR history that one driver won two sanctioned races in the same day. Two weeks later, September 19, Fonty Flock repeated the achievement winning both 30-lap NASCAR Modified Series races at Occoneechee Speedway.
137 In 1948, an outbreak of polio gripped the United States. One of the hardest hit areas was North Carolina where more than 2,500 cases were reported, more than 10 times the number reported the year before. With children most vulnerable to the contagious disease, physicians across North Carolina urged cities to close public playgrounds, recreation centers, and pools while discouraging other public venues such as movie theaters, ballparks, and even churches from opening. In keeping with the times, Bill France Sr. and NASCAR canceled several 1948 events in an effort to help contain the outbreak. It is the only time in NASCAR history that races were canceled due to a public epidemic.
Drivers lined up to get their starting positions; official Alvin Hawkins holds a hat while an unidentified person seated in the car draws a number for each competitor. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
138 NASCAR’s first championship battle (the 1948 Modified title) remains one of the most hotly contested in racing history. Red Byron won four races in a row taking an early points lead in April, but Fonty Flock roared back by grabbing 6 of his division-high 15 season victories late in the 1948 campaign. Byron and Flock ended up winning the final eight races of the year between them with Byron taking the lead for good by winning the 49th race in North Wilkesboro. A week later, Byron won at Charlotte with Flock rallying back with a victory at Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Byron wouldn’t be denied the championship (and the final race of the season) at Columbus Speedway (Georgia) in mid-November. His championship-winning margin was just 32.75 points. Tim Flock finished third in standings with seven-time winner Curtis Turner fourth and Buddy Shuman, a two-time victor, fifth.
139 Bill France Sr. promised a NASCAR drivers’ point fund and delivered at the end of the 1948 season. In all, France paid the top-20 drivers a total of $5,000 out of the $64,000 collected in ticket sales. Champion Red Byron got the lion’s share of the kitty taking home a $1,250 check signed by NASCAR treasurer Bill Tuthill. Byron gave $834 of the winnings to the car owner, Raymond Parks.
140 The idea of racing showroom stock cars was good, if it worked. The only way to find out was to hold an experimental race. The first one (a 10-mile Novice race for Strictly Stock late-model cars) was held January 23, 1949 as part of a NASCAR tripleheader at Broward Speedway in Florida. The 2-mile speedway used taxiways at the Ft. Lauderdale-Davie Airport. Lloyd Christopher won the event with little fanfare. France then staged a second experimental 10-mile Strictly Stock race February 27, 1949, pairing it with a 100-mile National Gran Prix Roadster event and a 25-mile Sports Car clash. After Bob Flock won the Roadster race and Tom DeMetry the Sports Car event, local driver Benny Georgeson of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, wheeled his Buick to the win. Eddie Mitchell, a Mercury driver from Defiance, Ohio, was second.
