Читать книгу 1001 NASCAR Facts - John Close - Страница 9
ОглавлениеEarly cars were hardly anything you’d consider strapping on for some hot laps at Darlington, Bristol, or Talladega. They were little more than motorized horse carriages created by eccentric “tinkerers.” By 1900, more than 100 different brands of cars were available and they were offered in all sorts of configurations.
Then, as now, you only needed two cars to race. The earliest races were total “run what ya brung” events contested on primitive roads and later at developed “driving parks.” Most early races were time trials, hill climbs, or endurance runs. Eventually, as the automobile became more prevalent at the turn of the century, oval racetracks began to spring up around the country.
During the Roaring Twenties, tracks of all kinds appeared across the nation as a speed-crazy culture contributed to one of America’s most explosive decades. Races were held everywhere with most still featuring purpose-built, high-speed racers.
Racing stock cars off the assembly line became more prevalent in the 1930s. For as little as $5, a thrill-seeking daredevil could buy an old roadster, coupe, or sedan at the junkyard, get it running, and take it racing at the local county fairgrounds dirt oval. Regardless of where you lived (New England, California, the Midwest, or the Southern United States) stock car racing was gaining in popularity.
Rajo Jack was also an extremely talented engine builder. Here’s a 1930s Champ Car racer proudly announcing he has a Rajo under the hood. (Photo Courtesy Steve Zautke Collection)
By the turn of the 20th Century, half- and one-mile county and state fairgrounds horse racing ovals were among the first tracks to host automobile races. (Photo Courtesy Steve Zautke Collection)
Stock car racing hit the beach at Daytona Beach in 1936 and set the stage for gas station proprietor and racer William Getty France to form a national organization that prompted the founding of NASCAR a decade later.
With that history as a backdrop, these are facts about cars, tracks, people, and events that had an impact on stock car racing in the 50-plus years leading up to the formation of the sport known today as NASCAR.
1 At the turn of the 20th Century, the total number of automobiles in the United States was estimated at around 10,000, about a quarter of the number of cars in the parking lot at any NASCAR Sprint Cup race today. By 1905, the number of cars in the United States had grown to 25,000; more than 200 companies tooled up to produce the new “horseless carriage.” Today, new auto sales in America total nearly 17 million units annually.
2 Sweepstakes was Henry Ford’s first race car. This 2,200-pound, 96-inch-wheelbase racer was built on a steel-reinforced wooden chassis. The 2-cylinder, water-cooled engine featured a massive 7 × 7–inch bore and stroke per cylinder. Mounted horizontally in the chassis, the estimated engine displacement was 538 ci (8.8 liters) topping out at 26 hp at 900 rpm. This is thought to be the first engine to have spark plugs with porcelain insulators. A 2-speed transmission and chain-drive configuration delivered the power payload to the rear axle. The car hit a top speed of 72 mph in testing, which bested the official automobile world speed record of 65.79 mph. Ford drove the car to victory over Alexander Winton in a historic 1901 race at Grosse Pointe, Michigan. He attracted enough financial interest to form the Henry Ford Company and later, the Ford Motor Company. Today, Sweepstakes is on display at the Henry Ford museum.
3 Steam-powered race cars were common at the dawn of the 20th Century. One of the earliest models to race consistently was the Keene Steammobile Runabout, a formidable car weighing 1,125 pounds. The Steammobile Runabout’s water tank capacity was 26 gallons and the chassis wheelbase measured 96 inches. Grounded by 35-inch wheels and 3-inch pneumatic tires, the Steammobile Runabout routinely ran in the 1901 Boston to Keene “endurance races.” These 85-mile events were organized and supported by Bay State Automobile Association and the New Hampshire Automobile Club.
4 Andrew L. Riker was one of America’s first tycoon racers. In 1900, Riker drove the Riker Torpedo to an electric-car world speed record of 29 mph over a 5-mile closed course. The record stood for more than 10 years. Riker was later instrumental in designing and producing the 1906 gas-powered, chain-driven Locomobile Old 16. With the famed George Robertson behind the wheel, the car went on to win the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup, which was, at the time, America’s most prestigious auto race.
5 Henry Ford was completely comfortable behind the wheel of Sweepstakes while racing Alexander Winton in 1901, but common sense told him he didn’t want anything to do with driving the company’s next racing creation, the Ford 999. In racing terms, the 999 was a beast. It was named (appropriately) after the famous New York Central Empire Express steam locomotive of the 1800s, which was the first man-made vehicle of any kind to exceed 100 mph. An iron-bar tiller steered 999; it featured a bare bones wood structure frame housing a massive 1,155-ci inline 4-cylinder engine capable of producing an estimated 70 to 80 hp. The car had a giant 230-pound flywheel with no transmission, just a wooden-block clutch and a solid-shaft direct drive to a rear ring and pinion gear. The 109-inch-wheelbase chassis had no rear springs and because the valvetrain and clutch were exposed, the ill-handling beast provided a constant oil bath for its driver. The 999 made its racing debut on October 25, 1902, at the Grosse Pointe track outside Detroit. With newcomer Barney Oldfield behind the wheel, the 999 secured the Manufacturers’ Challenge Cup for Ford with a time of 5 minutes 28 seconds, a world record for a 5-mile race on a closed course. Through the next year, Oldfield and the 999 toured the country and set countless speed records.
6 The Arrow was a “twin sister” to the Ford 999; both cars were built at the same time in 1902 by Ford engineer Tom Cooper. The Arrow was considered more sophisticated than the 999 because of an enhanced intake manifold that made the Arrow the faster of the two. Unlike the 999 however, the Arrow was star-crossed as it was involved in the first recorded fatality in American motorsports. On September 11, 1903, driver Frank Day was killed at the first automobile race at The Milwaukee Mile in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Henry Ford brought the Arrow back to Michigan where he repaired it in preparation for a land speed run. Ford, who originally declined to drive either car, wheeled the newly rechristened Red Devil 999 to a new land speed record of 91.37 mph on Anchor Bay at Lake St. Charles on January 12, 1904. Ford eventually retired both vehicles by the end of 1904.
7 Untold thousands of cars have raced at Daytona, both on the beach and at Daytona International Speedway. Only one, however, can claim to be the first at the World Center of Speed. Created by Ransom Olds, the Olds Pirate was the first car to make a timed pass at the first Daytona Beach Speed Trials in 1902. A bare-bones model of the Olds Curved Dash Runabout, the Pirate had no bodywork of any kind. Its most prominent feature was a pair of horizontally mounted torpedo-like gas and oil tanks. Propelled by a 95-ci single-cylinder engine, the Pirate and driver Horace T. Thomas cruised to a blazing 54.38 mph in the gasoline-powered 1,000-pound class in the 1902 Daytona trials. Because the event was officially sanctioned and scored by the American Automobile Association, the Pirate will forever have the distinction of being the first car to take an official race run at Daytona.
The Olds Pirate will be forever identified as the first great car to hit the sands and make an official timed speed run at Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo Courtesy General Motors)
8 Built in 1904, the Pope Toledo Racer was a prototype for the company’s stock Touring models introduced over the next several years. The car featured a 120-hp 4-cylinder gas internal combustion engine with twin cast heads and integrated copper water jackets. The car also had a gear-driven magneto and multiple-disc clutch. The Pope was one of the first American cars with a 4-speed transmission, as well a fifth “reverse” gear. All were fitted into a frame of chrome-nickel steel construction with a 104-inch wheelbase and 34-inch wheels. The Pope Toledo competed in the first Vanderbilt Cup Race in 1904; it finished third. Over the next several years, Pope continued to race the Torpedo model and use its successes to promote its Touring cars as one of the most advanced, fastest, and reliable cars available. Unfortunately, the strategy didn’t work and Albert Pope declared his auto company bankrupt in 1907.
9 Chrysler Corporation took NASCAR by storm in the 1960s when it introduced its 426 Hemi engine. The powerplant, while revolutionary in NASCAR, was not a new concept. The Hemi had made its debut in 1906 in the Pungs-Finch Limited. Built in Detroit, the Pungs-Finch engine was a 600-ci 4-cylinder model featuring hemispherical combustion chambers and angled valves. Thanks to the giant engine, the wooden-frame and -body car had an estimated top speed of 55 mph. Today, only one 1906 Pungs-Finch car remains in existence. The restored classic has won numerous vintage racer awards at both the Pebble Beach and Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance meets. It sold at auction in 2015 for $852,500.
10 Maybe the most important car ever, Henry Ford rolled out his first Model T October 1, 1908. Ford had been actively producing automobiles since 1903 with eight different models (the A, B, C, F, K, N, R, and S cars) before launching the Model T in 1908. The T featured a 4-cylinder 20-hp engine and was available in two models: the Runabout ($825), and the Touring model ($850). It quickly sold 10,000 units in the first year of production which led Ford to drop all other models in order to satisfy the demand for the Model T. With the advent of the automated assembly line in 1913, Ford ramped up Model T production and produced more than 15 million units before ending the car’s run in 1927. Due to the massive build numbers, the cost of a new Model T fell to around $300 in the mid-1920s making it the first affordable car for working-class Americans.
11 Few automobile inventions had as big an impact on the automobile as the electric starter. The concept was pioneered and patented in America at Dayton Engineering Laboratories (DELCO) in 1911 by Charles Kettering and Henry Leland. Prior to the electric starter, cars were started by hand cranking, often kicking back and resulting in untold numbers of hand, wrist, and arm injuries. Cadillac was the first major brand to implement the electric starter in 1912; Ford was one of the last to abandon the crank-starting method in 1919. By the 1920s, nearly all of the major U.S. brands featured electric starters, further fueling the automotive craze of the Roaring Twenties.
12 Crafted by the E. R. Thomas Motor Company in 1907, the Thomas Model 35 Flyer is arguably the most famous American turn-of-the-century race car. The 5,000-pound car, featuring a 4-cylinder 60-hp engine, won the first, and, to date, only race around the world in 1908. Driver George Schuster took the green flag in Times Square in New York City on February 12, and along with five other teams, headed for Paris, France. However, only three cars finished the 22,000-mile race with the Thomas Flyer declared the winner 169 days later on July 30, 1908. The Flyer, dubbed Leslie Special, was introduced to a new generation of racing fans in the 1965 movie The Great Race. Today, the original Thomas Flyer is on exhibit at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.
13 Organized by General Motors founder William Durant and driver Bob Burman, the Buick Racing Team dominated much of the early racing scene. The team, which was the first factory-backed racing effort, included Burman and the Chevrolet brothers (Louis and Arthur) as drivers. The team won hundreds of events during its run from 1908 to 1911, including a victory by Burman in the first American Automobile Association (AAA) –sanctioned race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (the Prest-O-Lite 250) August 19, 1909. With its racing heritage firmly established, Buick became a long-time NASCAR player, capturing two Sprint Cup Manufacturers’ Championships (1981 and 1982).
14 Winner of the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, the Marmon Wasp Model 32 was the only single-seat race car in the field that day. Piloted by the 1910 AAA driving champion Ray Harroun, the first use of a rear-view mirror was employed, allowing Harroun to be the only driver in the field without a riding mechanic. The feat introduced one of countless innovations developed in auto racing that eventually made their way into the production of everyday passenger vehicles.
Ray Harroun’s Marmon Wasp, a 6-cylinder car with an engine displacing 477 ci, was based on the 1909 Marmon Model 32 production car. (John Close Photo)
15 While aerodynamic testing is commonplace in today’s modern NASCAR, it wasn’t a consideration in racing until Frank Lockhart debuted the Stutz Black Hawk Special in 1928. Scale models of the car were constructed and aero-tested in both the Curtiss Aircraft and Army Air Services wind tunnels, one of the first American cars to be tested in such a manner. At 2,800-pounds, the vehicle featured a twin turbocharged Miller U-16 engine. It was also the first land speed record car to use an intercooler for the turbos. After a failed land speed record run at Daytona Beach that ended when Lockhart barrel-rolled the car into the ocean, the Black Hawk was repaired for another run at Daytona Beach on April 25. This time, the right-rear tire blew at more than 220 mph sending the car into a series of prolonged flips. Lockhart (the winner of the 1926 Indianapolis 500) was thrown from the vehicle and killed instantly. The engine was salvaged and later installed in the Sampson 16 Special for the 1939 Indianapolis 500, as well as the 1940, 1941, and 1946 Indy 500s. The engine is on display in the Indianapolis Hall of Fame Museum today.
16 Developed in 1929, the Chevrolet inline 6-cylinder engine quickly became a challenger to the Ford Flathead V-8 engine in the early years of stock car racing. The 193.9-ci six-banger produced 50 hp and featured cast-iron pistons and a forged-steel crankshaft. The engine, lighter than the Ford V-8, enabled Chevrolet and other 1930s GM coupes and sedans using the Stovebolt 6 to win countless local stock car, roadster, and Jalopy races against their Blue Oval competitors all the way into the 1960s. The only engine Chevrolet offered from 1929 through 1954 (including a 235-ci model in the new 1953 Chevrolet Corvette) was relegated to a secondary racing option with the 1955 introduction of the Chevy small-block V-8.
17 Although not the first V-8 engine produced, the Ford Flathead V-8 is one of the most important. Introduced in 1932, the engine was the first V-8 offered in an affordable American passenger car. It became a stalwart of the early stock car racing community as 1930s Ford coupes, roadsters, and sedans became the hot iron at local racetracks and stock car events throughout the country. The original engine measured 221 ci and produced about 65 hp. Juiced up with aftermarket items such as multiple carburetors, performance pistons, heads, and crankshaft, the Ford Flathead V-8 could easily be pushed to over 200 hp. The engine made the early stripped-down Fords the cars to beat in the early days of stock car racing and remained a stout competitor into the 1970s.
18 Today’s NASCAR Modified division got its start in the 1933 Elgin Road Races. The event was supposed to be for “stock roadster cars” but thanks to Edsel Ford, it turned out to be anything but Ford’s car featured a Harry Miller–built Ford 221-ci L-Flathead V-8 with a 3-speed manual transmission and live axle suspension. The 112-inch wheelbase featured transverse leaf springs and four-wheel mechanically actuated drum brakes. Stripped down to its most basic essentials with no fenders, interior, rumble seat, glass, or lighting, it was so fast that Ford immediately ordered Miller to build 10 of them. The day before the Elgin races, driver Fred Frame crashed his car into a grove of trees in Turn 7 and destroyed it. Ford had a back-up car readied and entered it in the race; Frame drove it to what is widely considered one of the greatest early stock car races ever. After a promotional victory tour, the car was stored in a barn for decades before a full restoration in 1988. It remains one of the most important race cars in the history of Ford Motor Company.
Jalopy Stock Car Racing was the grassroots backbone of the sport for nearly three decades. Here, a packed hill and infield crowd presses forward to get the best look at this action. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)
19 The engineers who control the building and performance of today’s modern NASCAR vehicles have nothing on the men who fashioned Jalopy stock cars from the 1930s through the late 1950s. The lack of money in the 1930s led to the Jalopy movement by using the ever-increasing car parts inventories at local junkyards. Basically stripped of their fenders, running boards, glass, and anything else deemed unnecessary to race, these rudimentary cars featured items such as a belt to strap the doors shut, large stripped bolts as welded braces, and fuel tanks crafted out of wash tubs. As racing became more sophisticated in the 1950s, the Jalopy class began to die out and was eventually replaced by a new brand of purpose-built lightweight modified cars. America’s first entry-level stock car racing class, the Jalopies, eventually faded from the racing scene completely by the 1970s.
20 Given that the earliest race cars were production vehicles, getting to and from the racetrack was a simple exercise of driving the car there and back. By the 1920s, Indy and sprint car drivers started using trailers to haul their race cars. Stock car racing, however, didn’t adopt this trend until the mid-1950s. Meanwhile, early Jalopy and roadster cars (illegal to drive on the street) were pulled to and from the track by trucks or more powerful production cars using a tow bar.
21 The front fenders of today’s NASCAR entries are “stickered up” with the logos of companies offering contingency prize money in addition to the winnings earned in the race. The first time these types of contingency awards were used in American racing was in the 1906 American Grand Prize Race at Savannah, Georgia. There, Continental Tires and Bosch Magneto posted additional contingency money ($4,500 and $1,000, respectively) for the winner while Michelin Tire paid $1,000 to the winner.
22 The 1930s saw car designers literally switch gears. The emphasis from luxury and style to mechanical innovation and reliability. Improvements that became part of NASCAR vehicles in later decades were smooth shifting synchromesh transmissions, hydraulic brakes, power steering, and a sleeker, all-steel aerodynamic body shape. Two other 1930s innovations (a steering column–mounted gearshift and in-dash AM radio) never really caught on with the racing crowd but proved to be popular options with the buying public just the same.
23 Unlike today’s modern NASCAR driver who goes into battle with the highest-quality personal safety gear available, early racers wore little to protect themselves from injury. Stock car racing helmets in the 1920s and 1930s were often little more than replicas of leather football helmets or football helmets themselves. Usually a T-shirt, work pants and boots, goggles, and leather driving gloves completed the driver’s safety ensemble.
24 Although Goodyear and Firestone churned out racing tires for Indy Cars in the 1920s and 1930s, neither firm made an attempt to create a racing-specific tire for the emerging stock car market. That left the stock car, roadster, and Jalopy racers of the 1920s and 1930s to seek out the best production tires for their racers. These early tires featured an inner tube of compressed air inside a hard rubber outer casing reinforced with layers or plies of fabric cords. Initially made of cotton, the cords were replaced by rayon in the 1930s. The best of these bias-ply tires for racing proved to be harder rubber composition truck tires built to withstand the loads and long distances of commercial vehicles. At a cost of nearly $8 for a set of four, most Depression-era racers didn’t have money for new tires, which sent drivers and teams scurrying around the local junkyard for used tires. These racing scuffs usually cost 10 to 25 cents each.
25 There is no record of a NASCAR race ever being held at the Narragansett Trotting Park or Rhode Island State Fairgrounds racetrack, but the sanctioning body owes a tip of the hat to the 1-mile dirt oval just the same. The first automobile oval-track race in America was held at the Narragansett Trotting Park September 7, 1896. With an estimated 60,000 fair-goers on hand to watch the race, seven cars (five internal combustion, one steam, and one electric powered) entered the event. A Riker Motor Company Electric Car won the five-lap race in 15 minutes logging a top speed of 24 mph. Narragansett Trotting Park continued to be the hub for auto racing in the Northeast and hosted numerous events through 1913. The popularity of the races doomed the horse races there. Eventually, the facility was taken over by the state and renamed the Rhode Island State Fairgrounds in 1913. The track was paved and reconfigured with banked turns in 1915. Eddie Rickenbacker, who went on to be America’s top flying ace in World War I, won the first race on the new track September 18, 1915. The track continued to host racing events until closing for good after the 1924 racing season.
26 Located in Yonkers, New York, the Empire City Race Track was one of the first facilities in New York State to host auto races. Built in 1899 as the Empire City Trotting Club at a cost of $780,000, the half-mile dirt oval track featured a 7,500-seat grandstand. Closed for horse racing almost as quickly as it opened, the track began hosting select auto racing–related events including a world record speed run in 1902 by Barney Oldfield and the Ford 999. Oldfield covered the 1.6-kilometer distance in 55.54 seconds. Auto racing continued at Empire City until 1907 when the track was purchased and reopened as a thoroughbred horse racing facility. The last vestiges of Empire City Racetrack came down in 1950 when the track was renamed Yonkers Raceway. In 1972, the Rooney family (owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers) purchased the track. Today, it flourishes as one of the top horse trotting facilities in the United States, hosting nearly 250 events annually.
Here is what’s left of Frank Day’s Ford Arrow after he crashed at Milwaukee Mile’s inaugural event in 1903. Day was the first driver to perish in a race. (Photo Courtesy Steve Zautke Collection)
27 Opened in 1903, The Milwaukee Mile, on the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in West Allis, today stands as America’s longest continuously operating speedway. The Mile first came on the scene as a privately owned, 1-mile horse racing track in 1876. It was then purchased by the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society as part of the property used to create a new, permanent site for the Wisconsin State Fair in 1891. A decade later, interest in staging automobile auto races on the dirt oval sparked the first race. Thousands of spectators flocked to the track on Friday, September 11, to witness the two-day event highlighted by match races between Henry Ford’s 999 and Arrow racers. Both cars had mechanical trouble on the first day allowing William Jones of Chicago to wheel a Columbia to victory in the speedway’s first auto race. His time of 8 minutes, 21 seconds in the five-lap event was good enough to beat four other competitors including the second-place driver, an unknown African-American racer simply known as Black Jack. Unfortunately, no motorsports events of any kind were scheduled for the Milwaukee Mile in 2017. In all, nearly 40 different NASCAR-sanctioned events were held at the track from 1984 to 2009.
28 It was inevitable that NASCAR would one day race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning with the first Brickyard 400 in 1994. More than 80 years earlier, the track opened on June 9, 1909. Ironically, the first competition at America’s motorsports Mecca wasn’t a car race but rather a National Hot Air Balloon Championship held on June 5, 1909. Organized by track founder, builder, and president Carl Fischer, the balloon event drew more than 40,000 people providing working capital to complete the unfinished 2.5-mile racetrack. Opened for car racing on August 19, 1909, the track’s original crushed stone surface couldn’t withstand the pressure of heavy automobiles, so in late 1909, Fischer had the surface repaved with more than 3.2-million bricks held together with grouted cement. After a series of 1910 race festivals featuring as many as 40 events over three days, Indy hosted its first 500-mile race May 30, 1911. A field of 40 cars took a five-wide start in front of an estimated 80,000 fans with Ray Harroun and his Marmon Wasp holding off Ralph Mulford for the victory. The event drew unprecedented exposure for the sport and new fans throughout the country, ultimately setting the stage for decades-long expansion of motorsports in America including the formation of NASCAR.
29 Long before Richmond International Raceway hosted its first NASCAR event, racing was a mainstay at the Virginia State Fairgrounds. In August 1907, the 1-mile dirt oval at the State Fairgrounds hosted the first race in Richmond. The event drew 2,500 fans and set the stage for the Fairgrounds to host countless open-wheel races throughout the next four decades. By 1928, the Richmond Fairgrounds was hosting unmodified stock car races. Jalopy races made their debut at the track in the 1930s and on July 4, 1941, the track held its first sanctioned stock car race. After World War II, racing continued at the Virginia State Fairgrounds at a new site in rural Henrico County, now home to Richmond International Raceway. The track was a mainstay for stock car racing throughout the remainder of the decade and into the early 1950s, joining the NASCAR ranks on April 19, 1953, when Lee Petty won the track’s first Grand National event in a Petty Enterprises Dodge. Since then, the facility has hosted more than 200 races in seven different NASCAR divisions.
30 Can you imagine a NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, or Truck Series race being run on a superspeedway made out of wood? Of course not, but that’s exactly what made up the racing surface of America’s first superspeedways. With both land and wood plentiful and inexpensive, giant wooden racetracks made their first appearance in America in 1910. That’s when the first of these Board Tracks (a 1.25-mile oval constructed of 2 × 4–foot wooden planks) was built in Playa del Rey, California. In addition to its unique construction, Playa del Rey also had 20-degree banking in the corners making it the first high-banked speedway in the country. Wooden superspeedway construction surged in 1915 with the addition of a 2-mile banked oval in Chicago, 1-mile banked ovals in Brooklyn, New York, and Des Moines, Iowa, and a 1.25-mile banked oval in Omaha, Nebraska. By far the most unique Board Track constructed in 1915 was a 2-mile Tacoma, Washington, oval banked 18 feet (more than 50 degrees). Eventually, a total of 19 high-banked, 1-mile or longer wooden-surface speedways were built through the late 1920s, most hosting AAA National Championship IndyCar-style races during that period. The Board Track era proved to be short, however, as weather played havoc with the untreated wooden surface. Heat, cold, rain and snow caused warping, cracking, and rotting surface conditions. In the end, most Board Tracks existed two or three years before figuratively rotting into the record books, but they remain a forerunner to Bill France’s NASCAR high-banked superspeedway dream that became a reality at Daytona International Speedway in 1959.
31 While Charlotte Speedway on Little Rock Road was the site of the first NASCAR “Strictly Stock” race in 1949, another Charlotte Speedway circa 1924 was the original venue for the Queen City. A crowd estimated at more than 50,000 poured into the 1.25-mile banked oval October 25, 1924, to see an IndyCar-style race featuring top drivers of the day. The 200-lap, 250-mile AAA-sanctioned event featured 12 cars with Tommy Milton taking home the top prize of $10,000. In all, 15 races were held at the track, including 6 in 1926. After just three events in 1927, Charlotte Speedway closed due to the significant cost of maintaining the 2 × 4–inch green pine and cypress board surface that had deteriorated significantly in the hot North Carolina summer conditions.
32 Early auto racing was dangerous and fatalities were then (as they are now) an unwanted outcome. One of the most dangerous and deadly tracks of racing’s early years was Ascot Motor Speedway (later Legion Ascot) in California. The 5/8-mile dirt track opened on Thanksgiving Day 1924 and hosted open-wheel and early stock car competitions through 1936. In all, 24 drivers died racing at the killer track with 6 perishing in 1933 alone. The deaths prompted an outcry from local newspapers printing headlines such as “Legalized Murder” and “Is It Worth It?” After driver Al Gordon and his riding mechanic Spider Matlock were killed in a January 26, 1936, crash, Legion Ascot was shut down. A fire four months later destroyed the track’s grandstand; the speedway nicknamed “King of the Grim Reapers” was now closed forever.
33 Opened as a 1-mile dirt track October 17, 1931, Oakland Speedway was critical to the growth of auto racing in California. Located in San Leandro, the track was billed as “fastest dirt mile track in the country.” A half-mile dirt track was built inside the Oakland oval in 1935 and with it came “low-buck” stock car racing. Oakland stayed active throughout the last half of the 1930s helping to integrate short-track stock car, midget, motorcycle, and roadster races into the California car scene. Oakland Speedway shut down at the outbreak of World War II and the track’s grandstand came down in 1942. Never reopened, Oakland Speedway is now the site of the Bayfair Mall.
34 Opened in 1916, Atlanta’s Lakewood Speedway (a 1-mile dirt oval with a lake taking up most of the infield) hosted its first stock car race November 11, 1938. Lloyd Seay won the event in a 1934 Ford roadster owned by Raymond Parks, besting a top field of drivers including Roy Hall, Bob Flock, and NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. Shuttered during World War II, Lakewood reopened in September 1945 and stayed busy throughout the rest of the decade and into the 1950s with NSCRA-, AAA-, and, NSCCC-sanctioned events. NASCAR made its first appearance at Lakewood November 11, 1951, with Tim Flock besting brother Bob for the victory in the Strictly Stock event. NASCAR records show Lakewood hosted 13 events in the 1950s including a pair of Convertible Division races (1956 and 1958). Lee Petty is shown as the winner of the final NASCAR race at Lakewood in 1959 although his son, Richard Petty was originally declared the winner of the (now) NASCAR Grand National division event. The building of Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1960 marked the end of NASCAR at Lakewood Speedway, which eventually hosted its last auto race on Labor Day in 1979 when Georgia racing legend Buck Simmons took the checkered flag. While just a distant memory now, Lakewood Speedway proved to be one of the most important tracks of NASCAR’s early years; its big city Atlanta market and larger-than-most 1-mile length helped further legitimize the sport in the southern United States.
Here’s a Milwaukee Mile photo, circa 1915, compelling fans to vote for good roads, something that grew both general motoring and the sport. (Photo Courtesy Steve Zautke Collection)
35 With the departure of the land speed record runs to the Salt Flats in Utah, the city of Daytona Beach began looking for ways to continue both the excitement and the financial benefits of hosting auto racing events. In 1936, the city selected Sig Haugdahl to come up with a fresh concept. Haugdahl’s response was to create a new event, a race for stock cars on a track that combined both the beach and the paved surface of Florida Highway A1A. Haugdahl, a local racer who set the land speed record of 180 mph in his Wisconsin Special on the beach in 1922, designed a track that initially measured 3.2 miles. The oval track used one long paved straight on A1A and another running parallel on the beach connected by a pair of hairpin turns in the sand. Under Haugdahl and later Bill France Sr., the Daytona Beach Course hosted stock car races until closing down for the duration of World War II. After the war, France quickly went back to promoting races on the track, which had expanded to a 4.2-mile distance. That Beach Course has the distinction of staging the first NASCAR-sanctioned race of any kind (a modified event won by Red Byron) in February 1948. The track continued to host NASCAR Modified, Strictly Stock, Convertible, and Grand National races until the opening of Daytona International Speedway in 1959. Paul Goldsmith wheeled a Ray Fox-prepared Pontiac to victory in the last NASCAR race held on the Daytona Beach Course in 1958. Meanwhile, Banjo Matthews captured a 125-mile NASCAR Sportsman/Modified race. Curtis Turner grabbed top honors in the 160-mile NASCAR Convertible event that same weekend as racing on the beach at Daytona faded into history.
36 Recognized as the first 1-mile dirt speedway in America specifically built for auto racing, Langhorne Speedway opened in 1926. Langhorne was literally a circle with no discernible straightaways and hosted IndyCar, midget, sprint, and motorcycle racing throughout its early history. In 1940, the suburban Philadelphia track hosted the All American Championships, one of the first big stock car races held on the East Coast. Georgia ace Roy Hall won the 200-mile event with Bill France Sr. coming in second. Eventually, Langhorne showed up on the NASCAR tour as part of the inaugural 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock season. Curtis Turner won the race, beating 44 other competitors. A total of 19 NASCAR events (including two Convertible Division races) were held at Langhorne Speedway through the 1957 season. The track remained open until 1971 when it was demolished for the development of a shopping center.
37 Born during the middle of the American Civil War, Henry Ford graduated from being an engineering assistant for Thomas Edison to one of America’s greatest industrialists. His early auto racing efforts not only helped establish the new form of transportation as a viable commodity in American culture and commerce, but they also fueled the sport into the 21st Century through technical innovation and financial support. Ford constructed his first car, the Quadricycle, in 1896. With Edison’s encouragement to build a better model, Ford spent the next 10 years doing that before introducing the Ford Model T, the first affordable car for America’s general public. Ford is also credited with implementing the first moving automotive assembly line, dealer franchising, increasing the minimum wage, shorter work weeks, and profit sharing for employees. In addition to being one of the wealthiest people in the world, Ford also ran for Senate in 1918 (he lost). He also consulted virtually every American president from the early 1900s through the 1940s. Ford also drew great criticism for his pacifist war, racial profiling, and anti-union activities. Prior to his death in 1947, Ford launched the Ford Foundation, created for the advancement of human welfare. He donated most of his wealth to the foundation, which today is worth an estimated $13 billion dollars.
38 Born in Wauseon, Ohio, in 1878, Barney Oldfield was the first great American race car driver. In 1902, the young bicycle racer agreed to drive Henry Ford’s famous 999 race car, a lofty proposition given Oldfield had never driven a car much less raced one. Undaunted, Oldfield and the 999 defeated a host of challengers during the next two years. He was the first driver to average faster than a mile a minute in a race car, turning the trick in 59.6 seconds at Indianapolis in 1903. In 1910, he set the world land speed record by piloting a Blitzen Benz to 131.724 mph on the sands at Daytona Beach. That made Oldfield a star to the American public and led to acting roles and endorsements. Oldfield later became the first to turn a lap at more than 100-mph average at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1916. An advocate for safety, Oldfield was a pioneer in the use of driver safety restraints, roll cage use, and tire development. Oldfield retired in 1918 but stayed connected to motorsports until his death in 1946.
39 The son of a Michigan governor, William Durant wasn’t dreaming of an automotive empire when he took over the Buick Car Company in 1904, but that’s exactly what happened. He used Buick as the cornerstone to General Motors Holding Company, founded September 16, 1908. By combining Buick, Oldsmobile, and later Cadillac and Oakland (Pontiac), Durant formed the first automotive super-company. A self-made millionaire, Durant believed that avoiding duplication was the automobile’s ticket to profitability. It is said that Durant was prepared to spend $8 million to acquire the Ford Motor Company in 1909, but that deal never happened. Later, with finances stretched to the limit, Durant was forced out of General Motors in 1910 only to return to the business a year later after partnering with Louis Chevrolet. By 1914, Durant had bought out Chevrolet and set his sights on taking back General Motors. In 1916, Durant had acquired enough stock to again become president of GM and during the next four years grew the car company to a staggering size. Durant lost control of General Motors again in 1920. His next automotive project, Durant Motors, lasted through the 1920s before falling victim to the Great Depression in 1933. Having lost millions on stock investments when the stock market crashed in 1929, Durant declared bankruptcy in 1935. In the end, the man who created General Motors worked as a bowling alley manager before his death in 1947.
40 Considered the first great American gasoline-powered engine builder, Ransom Olds patented his first gas “hit and miss” engine in 1886 and founded America’s first car company, the Olds Motor Vehicle Company, in 1897. Olds was the first to outsource parts and mass-produce cars, specifically the Olds Curved Dash Runabout, producing 425 vehicles in 1901. These vehicles featured transmissions from Horace and John Dodge, engines from Henry Leland (the founder of Cadillac and Lincoln) and bodies from Fred Fisher, who went on to General Motors design fame. In 1902, Olds put his car brand on the auto racing map when he and a stripped down Runabout named The Pirate won the first official timed event on the shores of Daytona Beach, Florida. In later years, his Olds Rocket 88 became the engine of choice for modified and late model stock cars as well as in NASCAR; the brand won five of the first eight NASCAR Strictly Stock races during the inaugural 1949 season. The high point for Oldsmobile’s racing success came in 1955 when Tim Flock delivered the brand’s only NASCAR Manufacturers’ Championship. Olds also founded REO Motor Company and the first line of mass-produced trucks in 1908, and later designed and produced the first gas-powered lawnmower in the 1940s. Olds died in 1950 at the age of 86.
41 While most historians remember September 26, 1909, as the start of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union strike in New York City, NASCAR fans celebrate it as the birth of NASCAR founder William Getty France; the son of Irish immigrants Emma Graham and William Henry France. As a teenager, the Washington, D.C. native would joyride his father’s Model T on a banked board track in Maryland. Later, in the midst of the Great Depression, France moved his family (now consisting of wife Anne and son Bill Jr.) to Daytona Beach, Florida, to escape the brutal winters of the north. There, he became ingrained in the emerging Daytona racing culture and the rest, as they say, is history.
Bill France Sr. grew NASCAR from an idea to one of the most successful professional sports enterprises in America. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
42 One of America’s early racing stars, Joe Tracy, rivaled Barney Old-field as the country’s top driver at the turn of the 20th Century. A regular competitor in the early Vanderbilt and Bennett Cup races, he is the only driver to participate in the first five Vanderbilt Cup and Elimination events from 1904 to 1906. Tracy participated in the 1904 Daytona Beach Tournament races and drove a Peerless to a second-place finish in that 5-mile event. He retired after the 1906 season, and was retroactively awarded the 1906 National Driving Championship in 1951.
43 You won’t find William Klann’s name in any NASCAR record book, but his name will forever be linked to the American automobile just the same. “Pa” Klann, a machinist at Ford, brought the concept of the automated assembly line to Henry Ford. Klann visited the Swift Meat packing slaughterhouse in Chicago where he was impressed with the factory’s deconstruction line and the efficiency of one person doing the same job. Klann took the idea to Detroit where he and Peter Martin, head of Ford production at the time, “flipped” the concept, making the first modern moving automobile assembly line. This new system allowed Ford to mass-produce inexpensive cars.
44 Long before lending his name and design instincts to an American car brand, Louis Chevrolet was a top race car driver. Born in France on Christmas Day 1878, Chevrolet first moved to Canada and then to Brooklyn, New York, in 1899. Initially a mechanic, Chevrolet began driving race cars in 1900 and by 1905, was beating Barney Oldfield, Henry Ford, and others in high-profile races. His victories drew the attention of William Durant, president at General Motors, who then hired Chevrolet to drive for his Buick race team. Chevrolet not only delivered on the track, but also in the shop where he designed a car under his own name. The vehicle featured an industry-first 6-cylinder, center-of-floor gearshift, and an emergency brake mounted under the dash. Launched in 1912, the new Chevrolet sold nearly 20,000 cars its first three years.
Chevrolet was unhappy, often clashing with Durant, forcing him to leave the company in 1914. He then founded Frontenac Motor Corporation with his brothers, Gaston and Arthur. Using a Ford Model T as the base chassis, the Chevrolet brothers built three Frontenac race cars, one for each to drive in the 1915 Indianapolis 500. While none of the cars finished, Chevrolet was determined to build a winner, a feat he accomplished when Gaston Chevrolet and Tommy Milton won back-to-back Indy 500s in 1920 and 1921. Meanwhile, Louis competed in the Indy 500 four times, his best finish a seventh-place in 1919. Unfortunately, an economic downturn forced Chevrolet and Frontenac out of business in 1922. Chevrolet continued building cylinder heads for the now “Fronty-Fords” until the Ford Model A all but put him out of business. In the end, Chevrolet never cashed in on the financial success of the brand bearing his name although he returned to the company as a consultant in the 1930s. Chevrolet was forced to retire after suffering a brain hemorrhage in 1938. He lived out his final years in poor health passing away on June 6, 1941. He is buried across the street from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Holy Cross Cemetery.
45 The career of Hall of Fame Driver Wendell Scott highlights the history of African-Americans in NASCAR. While Scott is a NASCAR pioneer, others laid the groundwork for his entrance into motors-ports. Dewey Gadsen, better known as Rajo Jack, was part of that group. Barred from top competitions in the 1920s and 1930s because of his color, Rajo Jack competed in “outlaw” races on the West Coast. He sometimes claimed to be Native American or a Portuguese driver named Jack DeSoto so he could be allowed to race. Among his biggest wins was the 1936 AAA National Championship 200-mile stock car event at Mines Field in Los Angeles. He also won 300-milers at Oakland and Ascot Speedways in the 1930s and raced into the 1950s before ending his driving career. Gadsen died of a heart attack in 1956 and his death certificate identifies him as Rajo Jack.
46 Frank Lockhart had Daytona International Speedway grandstand named honoring him as one of the great drivers of the 1920s. Born in Ohio, Lockhart mastered the dirt and board tracks of California before moving to IndyCars in 1926; he promptly won the Indy 500, making him the fourth rookie to capture the event. Lockhart won four additional IndyCar events in 1926 and finished second in the AAA National Championship standings. During the off-season, Lockhart, along with John and Zenas Wiesel, designed and produced a manifold to cool the fuel between the carburetor and supercharger. Lockhart secured a patent for the part now commonly called an intercooler. The intercooler provided a significant jump in horsepower and propelled Lockhart to a new world land speed record of 164.02 mph during a pre–Indy 500 test on Muroc Dry Lake in California.
Lockhart and his Perfect Circle Turbocharged racer then won the pole for the 1927 Indy 500 and led the most laps before the car broke a rod late in the race. He won nine Indy Car events in 1927 and again finished second in the AAA National Championship chase.
Buoyed by his land speed record of 1927, Lockhart focused on a new project for 1928: the Stutz Black Hawk land speed racer. The car was plagued by bad luck, crashing on its first outing on the beach at Daytona in February 1928. Two months later, Lockhart and the Black Hawk returned to Daytona for another land speed attempt. This time, Lockhart, at just 25 years old, was killed in the crash, cementing his place as a Daytona and racing legend for all time.
47 While best known as a top official for the Automobile Club of America (AAA) West Coast Region during the 1920s and 1930s, Art Pillsbury made a then-unknown giant contribution to NASCAR and the construction of its banked speedways. Pillsbury was the first to apply the Searle Spiral Easement Curve to racetrack building. The concept was pioneered in the railroad industry; the rails were placed at different heights on a gradual incline in the turns, easing the transition from the flat straights into the banked corners. This allowed for greater overall speed. Pillsbury and speedway construction manager Jack Prince first applied this spiral banking formula when building the 1.25-mile Beverly Hills Speedway in 1919.
At the track’s first event in 1920, cars held the track at record race speeds averaging in excess of 100 mph for the entire event, an astonishing mark considering that was faster than the average qualifying speed for the Indianapolis 500 at that time. Thanks to Pillsbury, racing not only got faster, but race car geometry and set up changed forever. Pillsbury went on to build or consult on most major banked superspeedways of the Board Track era. His crowning achievement was a 45-degree banked track at Culver City, California, in 1924. Since then, “Pillsbury’s Principles” have been used in the construction of virtually every banked track in America, including those on the current NASCAR tour.
48 Without a doubt, Englishman Sir Malcolm Campbell was the all-time king of the Daytona Beach world land speed record, setting a new record five times from 1928 through 1935. Campbell’s Bluebird land speed cars were famous worldwide and the 1933 version was the first to break the 250 mph barrier with a 272.465 mph record run. Two years later, Campbell slightly bettered the mark with a 276.710 mph clocking. As Campbell helped put Daytona on the map as the World Center of Speed, he also nearly destroyed that distinction when he moved his land speed record runs to the dry lake beds near Bonneville, Utah. It was there that Campbell realized his dream of becoming the first to break the 300 mph barrier with a 301.129 mph world speed record in September 1935. He promptly retired and never made another land speed record attempt. He passed away from a stroke in 1949.
49 As stock car racing’s first great team owner, Raymond Parks’ accomplishments are often overlooked. Born in 1914, Parks, the oldest of 16 children, grew up in hardscrabble Georgia. He left home at 15 to work in the illegal moonshine business and began fielding race cars for local Atlanta drivers Roy Hall and Lloyd Seay in 1938. Wrenched by legendary mechanic Red Vogt, Parks’ immaculately prepared Fords, with Hall, Seay, and sometimes Bill France Sr. behind the wheel, dominated stock car racing in the south prior to World War II. After the war, Parks returned to racing and his cars won the first two NASCAR championships contested: the modified title with Fonty Flock in 1948 and the first NASCAR Strictly Stock title with driver Red Byron in 1949. Parks, always dressed in a coat, tie, and hat, kept NASCAR alive in its early years, often bankrolling the enterprise for a struggling Bill France. After scoring a fourth-place finish with driver Curtis Turner at Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, Parks curtailed his support of racing and bowed out as a NASCAR team owner. A member of the International Motorsports and the NASCAR Halls of Fame, Parks passed away in 2010 at the age of 96.
50 Considered by many as the best natural-talent stock car driver of the pre-World War II era, Lloyd Seay’s life was cut short in September 1941 when his cousin shot him to death during an argument over an order of sugar for their moonshine business. Before the tragedy, Seay had translated his “whiskey tripper” driving skills to the racetrack, capturing the first race at Lakewood Speedway in 1938. Driving for his cousin Raymond Parks, Seay won multiple events throughout the South in 1939 and 1940 before scoring one of his biggest victories on the beach at Daytona in August 1941. Two weeks later, Seay again won, this time lapping the field twice in a race at High Point, North Carolina. On Labor Day, September 1, 1941, Seay earned his biggest win to date capturing the 100-mile National Championship Stock Car race at Lakewood. Sadly, the next day, he was shot dead, a premature end to the life of stock car racing’s first great driving star.
51 Considered the greatest mechanic of the early stock car era, Louis Jerome “Red” Vogt is also remembered as the man who gave NASCAR its name. Working out of a small garage in Atlanta, Vogt organized and chartered the National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA) in 1929, one of Georgia’s first racing series. He also built Miller engines for the Indy 500 and one year served as the riding mechanic for Peter DePaolo. In the late 1930s, Vogt’s mechanical genius propelled the winning stock car efforts of team owner Raymond Parks and drivers Roy Hall, Lloyd Seay, and Bill France before the formation of NASCAR. Vogt is credited with naming Bill France’s new stock car series “NASCAR” at the now famous Streamline Hotel meeting in 1947. Perhaps more important, he is credited with crafting the first set of rules for the sanctioning body.
Roy Hall looks dapper and relaxed before a NASCAR Modified event. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)
Back on track, he created winning Vogt Specials for Bob Flock, Fonty Flock, Red Byron, Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts, and Jack Smith during the early years of NASCAR. Vogt eventually closed his Atlanta garage, lending his talents to DePaolo’s NASCAR factory Ford team, Carl Kiekhaefer’s potent Chrysler 300 effort, and the legendary Fish Carburetor Buicks of the 1950s. Vogt eventually moved to Daytona Beach where he opened his own garage. He retired in 1968 and died at the age of 86 in 1991.
52 In 1972, singer Jim Croce released “Rapid Roy, the Stock Car Boy,” a song inspired by early stock car racing great Roy Hall. One of the best, and fastest, moonshine runners in Georgia in the late 1930s, Hall made his racing debut at the first Lakewood Speedway race in 1938. Driving for cousin/car owner Raymond Parks, Hall was one of the early kings of the Daytona Beach Road Course, winning there in 1939 and 1940. He was declared stock car racing’s “mythical” national champion in 1939 and 1941. Hall, consistently in trouble with the law and often racing under an assumed name to avoid authorities, saw his driving career short-circuited when he was charged and convicted of an Atlanta bank robbery in 1945. He served 31⁄2 years of a six-year prison sentence. Hall returned to racing, wheeling a Parks-owned Oldsmobile to a sixth-place finish in the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock race at North Wilkesboro. Two weeks later, Hall was seriously injured in a modified race and never regained his championship racing form. He retired from racing in 1960 and later saw his racing exploits put to song by Croce in 1972. Hall died in 1991 at the age of 71.
53 While mass production is usually seen as the launching point of American automobile culture, it was the development of several tools during the 19th Century that made construction of early cars a reality. Interchangeable parts on cars and their mass production would have never been possible without the milling machines, lathes, metal planers, and standardized control jigs developed in the late 1800s. All of these tools are still commonly used in the construction of NASCAR purpose-built race cars.
54 NASCAR has had countless epic races, but none of them have ever earned the right to be called the “Race of the Century.” That distinction was reserved for the 1895 Chicago to Evanston, and back again, event. Held November 28, 1895, the event is widely considered the first official stock car race held in the United States. The Chicago Times Herald newspaper and publisher, Herman H. Kohlsaat, fanned interest for the event. A total of 83 cars entered for the event originally scheduled for November 2, but when only three cars showed up, the race was rescheduled for Thanksgiving Day. On that day, six vehicles attended including one lone American-made gasoline car, the Duryea Motor Wagon. The high, thin-profile wooden-spoke carriage-wheeled car featured a 2-cylinder engine with tiller steering.
Battling near-freezing temperatures and overnight snow making roads nearly impassable, Duryea was the early leader before he hit a rut and broke the steering arm off his car. Undaunted, he found a blacksmith and had a replacement bar formed. Now in second place behind a Benz owned by Macy’s Department Store, Duryea regained the lead just before the halfway turnaround in Evanston. On the drive back to Chicago, Duryea’s car lost one of two cylinders requiring another near-hour delay for repairs. Despite that, Duryea crossed the finish line at Jackson Park more than an hour ahead of the Macy’s Benz, the only other car to finish. Duryea won $2,000 and great celebrity for his win as newspapers across the country hailed his amazing achievement for winning The Race of the Century.
55 The Ford Motor Company has scored more than 700 NASCAR Cup division wins, a foundation of success built when the first victory came in its first race. The October 10, 1901, contest pitted a then-unknown Henry Ford and his Sweepstakes car against Alexander Winton, already a major automobile builder. Considered one of the best race drivers of the day, Winton and his Bullet race car were clearly the favorite at the Grosse Point, Michigan, horse track located outside of Detroit. Winton quickly pulled away from Ford at the start of the race. Ford, a novice driver at best, eventually steadied his tiller-steered car and began closing the gap on Winton. When the Bullet slowed with mechanical problems in the 8th mile of the 10-mile event, Ford roared by and rolled to an easy win with a time of 13 minutes 23 seconds. The victory attracted investors to Ford’s new venture, Ford Motor Company, and signaled the beginning of the brand’s long participation in motorsports.
56 Named after Charles Goodyear, an American chemist who developed and patented vulcanized rubber in 1844, the Good-year Tire and Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. One year later, the Akron, Ohio, company produced its first automobile tire. In 1901, Seiberling provided Henry Ford, what is considered the first racing tires for his Sweepstakes car. Goodyear later developed and patented the first tubeless tire in 1903. When Henry Ford introduced his Ford Model T in 1908, it rode on Goodyears. Spurred on by early successes such as providing tires for Barney Oldfield’s world speed record run of 131.72 mph in 1910, Goodyear continued developing racing tires and won its first Indianapolis 500 in 1919. After another Indy 500 victory in 1920, Goodyear coined the phrase “Win On Sunday, Sell On Monday” in its advertising. Goodyear eventually came to NASCAR with a series of tire tests for the Convertible Division at Darlington in 1954 and, in 1955, team owner Carl Kiekhaefer used Goodyear “Police Specials” on his potent Chrysler 300 NASCAR champion race cars. In the 1960s, Goodyear survived a tire war with Firestone and fended off Hoosier Tires for NASCAR supremacy in the middle 1990s. Since 1968, every NASCAR Cup, and Grand National champion has raced on Goodyear tires.
57 As it is today, Detroit was a focal point for the American automobile industry and it makes sense for the city to be among the first having organized car races. In one of the first track-rental agreements in motorsports, a local automobile dealer leased Daniel Campo’s Grosse Point area track for Detroit’s first race. October 10, 1901, was practically a civic holiday as many businesses and even the local courthouse closed for the day. Meanwhile, the event attracted entries from all over the country. The first race was a 1-mile electric car test and was won by a Baker produced in Cleveland, Ohio. The second 1-mile race was a contest for cars weighing less than 1,500 pounds and was won by a Toledo Steam Car. The third event saw Henry Ford and his Sweepstakes racer score a stunning victory over Alexander Winton in a 10-mile clash.
The open-wheel crowd was the first to discover unique ways to get its racers to the track as evidenced by this heavy-duty Ford truck pulling double duty as a hauler and tow vehicle. (Photo Courtesy Steve Zautke Collection)
58 Long before NASCAR was established in 1947, the American Automobile Association (AAA) was sanctioning races. Formed in March 1902, the AAA Racing Board sanctioned its first race in 1904, the Vanderbilt Cup. A year later, AAA created the National Motor Car Championship marking the first time in American racing history that a points system was used to decide a national champion. A feud with the Automobile Club of America (ACA) spurred a name change to the AAA Contest Board in 1908 and, with the backing of the Manufacturers Contest Association (MCA), organized a set of rules that outlawed purpose-built European race cars in favor of American “stock configuration” cars. To ensure that stock vehicles were used, the AAA decreed that at least 50 cars had to be produced and sold during a calendar year to be eligible for competition. Many of these AAA types of rules can still be found in the NASCAR rule book. For the next 40-plus years, the AAA Contest Board ruled as America’s top motorsports organization sanctioning everything from the Indianapolis 500 to national sports car, midget, sprint, and stock car events. In 1955, the AAA abruptly ended all racing associations after 83 spectators died and more than 120 more injured when a car launched into the crowd at the 24 Hours of Le Mans event.
59 The 1904 Vanderbilt Cup Race was the first major international automobile race held in America. Organized by William K. Vanderbilt Jr., “Willie K.” saw the event as a springboard for American cars to rival their European counterparts. The inaugural race took place on Long Island, New York, October 8, 1904. Seventeen cars from France, Germany, Italy, and the United States took the green flag in two-minute intervals. Disaster struck almost immediately, when George Arents Jr. rolled his Mercedes on the first lap killing his riding-mechanic Carl Mensel. George Heath won the 10-lap race, averaging 52.2 mph in his French Panhard. The Vanderbilt Cup remained one of America’s most important races through 1916 before going dark from 1917 until racing resumed in 1936. While several races since have been called the Vanderbilt Cup, none of them have ties to the original concept.
60 Considered the first sanctioning organization for competitive motor racing, the New York-based Automobile Club of America began establishing contest rules in 1904. The club staged the 1908 American Grand Prize race considered to be the first American Gran Prix. Perhaps the club’s most important achievement, however, was its tireless lobbying for public motoring safety, laws, and better roads. Its efforts drew the attention of President William Howard Taft, the first President to travel by automobile. Taft helped the group champion automotive expansion in the United States. The ACA continued its public and motorsports efforts until the 1930s when the Great Depression crippled the automotive industry. The organization was disbanded during World War II.
61 The American Grand Prize was the first Gran Prix race held in the United States. The watershed event was held November 26, 1906, in Savannah, Georgia, in front of an estimated crowd of 250,000. Twenty teams took the green flag in the 16-lap, 402-mile race with French Gran Prix driver Louis Wagner wheeling a Fiat to victory. Despite the success, the ACA didn’t sanction another American Grand Prize event until 1910 when David Bruce-Brown beat Ralph DePalma for the win. Bruce-Brown won the American Grand Prize race again in 1911 before the event was moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the 1912 race. Caleb Bragg won the 1912 race on the 7.88-mile course in an event marred by the crash death of Bruce-Brown during practice. No race was held in 1913 and the event moved again, this time to Santa Monica, California. Run on an 8.44-mile course along the Pacific Ocean, Eddie Pullen’s Mercer took the top spot in the 1914 race, which, for the first time, featured primarily American drivers and cars due to the outbreak of World War I in Europe. The 1915 American Grand Prize race was run in San Francisco, California, and won by Dario Resta while the 1916 Santa Monica Gran Prix saw Howdy Wilcox and Johnny Aitken co-pilot a Peugeot to victory. The 1916 race, part of the AAA National Championship series, proved to be the last Formula 1 Gran Prix–style race held in the United States until the 1959 United States Grand Prix at Sebring International Raceway December 12, 1959.
62 The preferred distance for many NASCAR races has become 500 miles, but one of the earliest stock production car races in America covered more than twice that distance. Many early races were 24-hour affairs and it was simply a matter of how many miles could be run in that time. On June 22, 1907, nine cars took the green flag on the Michigan State Fairground’s 1-mile dirt oval in Detroit. Henry Ford’s Model K won the race, covering 1,135 miles. The winning distance was 300 miles more than the previous best in a 24-hour event. Because the rules allowed multiple drivers and cars, drivers Frank Kulick and Bert Lorimer used two different Model Ks to win the event. Herbert Lytle’s Pope Toledo finished second with 1,109 miles completed; seven of the nine starters completed the marathon race.
63 From the 1992 through the 1997 Winston Cup seasons, NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Darrell Waltrip sported sponsorship from Western Auto/Parts America. The association represented the peak in motorsports marketing for the company formed by entrepreneur George Pepperdine as Western Auto Supply Company. Pepperdine quickly realized Henry Ford’s 1908 Model T was an automotive aftermarket opportunity waiting to happen and formed a mail order business that same year catering mainly to Model T owners. Pepperdine made a fortune selling Model T and other parts and opened Western Auto’s first retail store in 1921. Along with other retail giants of the 1920s, including Piggly Wiggly, J. C. Penney, and F. W. Woolworth, Western Auto helped develop today’s modern franchise business concepts. Eventually, Western Auto grew to nearly 1,600 outlets providing parts to generations of racers over the next six decades. In 1988, Western Auto was purchased by Sears and rebranded in 1996 as Parts America. Sears sold off its shares of Western Auto/Parts America in 1998 ending its association with Waltrip, but the company has stayed an active NASCAR marketer under its new name, Advance Auto Parts.
64 Each year, NASCAR updates its rulebook with performance and safety initiatives. Prior to the 1914 season, a new rule prohibiting the consumption of alcohol during the Indianapolis 500 was instituted. The edict was deemed necessary after Frenchman Jules Goux reportedly drank up to six one-pint bottles of champagne (one at each pit stop) during the 1913 Indy 500. The bubbly apparently had little effect on Goux; he won the race in a Peugeot. Later, Goux credited the champagne with helping him secure the victory. Race officials didn’t quite see it that way and the next year they implemented the first rules against drinking and driving in auto racing.
65 The American Automobile Association and its Contest Board sanctioned one of the first stock car circuits in 1927. Races were held in Atlantic City, New Jersey; Altoona, Pennsylvania; Salem, Indiana; and Charlotte, North Carolina, that year with some events in support of the AAA National Championship Indy Car events. Among the cars that competed were Stutz Bearcat, Auburn, and Studebaker, all roadster-type stock models with few enhancements. Early top drivers Ralph Hepburn and Frank Lockhart also participated in the races. Unfortunately, few records of the events remain today as the AAA abandoned the series after 1928.
Early auto races drew giant crowds, treated to great spectacles on the track and in the air with balloon ascensions and flyovers such as this. (Photo Courtesy Steve Zautke Collection)
66 On October 28, 1919, the United States passed the Volstead Act prohibiting the production, storage, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages in America. Little did Congress know that the 18th Amendment to the Constitution would be a boon to stock car racing as law-breaking moonshiners and whiskey trippers would become some of NASCAR’s earliest driving stars. This was especially true in the Southern United States where Roy Hall, Lloyd Seay, Jimmy Lewallen, Bill Blair, Junior Johnson, and others honed their driving skills running “moon.” The act also spurred a technological boom for stock car racing as moonshiners modified their pedestrian-looking cars into lightweight, high-powered vehicles capable of outrunning the fastest police cars of the day. With local and regional bragging rights at stake, the moonshiners headed to local fields, makeshift tracks, and fairground ovals to prove who had the hottest iron in head-to-head competition. These early events drew large crowds of spectators and eventually led to more formalized races in the South during the latter 1930s. The repeal of the Volstead Act on December 5, 1933, did little to slow stock car racing as moonshiners/racers continued to make illegal alcohol, modify their cars, and thrill racing crowds well into the 1960s.
67 Held on August 26, 1933, in conjunction with the Chicago World’s Fair, the Elgin Road Races gave stock car racing a giant boost on a grand scale. The Elgin site of many area road races from 1910 to 1920, the 1933 event featured top national driving stars Wilbur Shaw, Mauri Rose, Fred Frame, Ralph DePalma, and Lou Moore. A crowd estimated at 35,000 showed up for two races, the first a 200-mile Indy-car event won by Phil Shafer in a Buick Special over Frame’s Miller Duesenberg and Rose’s Studebaker-powered Russell 8. The second race was limited to stock roadsters with a maximum engine displacement of 231 ci. The 15-car field included 2 Chevrolets, 1 Plymouth, 1 Dodge, and 11 new 1933 Fords powered by improved Flathead V-8 engines that had been tooled by a new young talent named Harry Miller. The 200-mile stock car event proved to be an all-Ford show as Frame and Jack Petticord’s Fords swapped the lead before Frame won in a time of 2 hours 32 minutes 6.1 seconds (80.22 average mph). At one point, Frame’s Ford was timed at more than 100 mph on the front stretch as Fords dominated the finish by taking the first seven spots. While Ford and Miller went on to motorsports history, the 8-mile Elgin track was shut down after the race and never opened again.
68 Hailed as a new era for automobile racing by the Los Angeles Times, the Gilmore Gold Cup is considered to be one of the very first series for stock cars. Sponsored by Gilmore Oil Company, the four-race series began in 1933 with the Elgin Road Races. The second race of the series was held on February 18, 1934, at Mines Field, a local airport located near what is now Los Angeles International Airport. Sanctioned by the AAA, the race between mostly Ford Flathead V-8 powered roadsters drew a crowd estimated near 75,000. Each paid $1.50 admission to watch some of the top drivers of the day (Pete DePaolo, Louie Meyer, Rex Mays, and Wilber Shaw) race on a specially created “B-shaped,” 2-mile airport oval.
Despite the star power, Hartwell Wilburn “Stubby” Stubblefield drove to the win, but only after a four-day recheck of the scoring to confirm his victory. The Gilmore Gold Cup was completed with two additional 1934 events, one at Ascot Speedway and the other at Oakland Speedway. The Ascot race was run on both the track and roads surrounding the speedway, leading to an epic financial failure because fans could watch the action without buying a ticket. While it was a monetary success, the final event at the 1-mile Oakland dirt oval proved to be the end of the Gilmore Gold Cup as William Pickens (the driving force behind the series) contracted blood poisoning after stepping on a rusty nail at the first Mines Field race and died later in 1934. Despite the demise of the series, the Los Angeles Mines Field event laid the groundwork for municipalities to become involved in stock car racing, a concept that eventually played out on the shores of Daytona Beach two years later.
69 Sponsorship in today’s NASCAR is essential to a team’s success. The initial marriage of a stock car team and a company sponsorship is believed to have happened at the 1936 inaugural Daytona Beach-Road Course race. Winner Milt Marion’s 1936 Ford convertible had sponsorship from Permatex, a northeastern-based sealant company. The idea behind the promotion was to have Marion take a 10,000-mile trip around America to prove the reliability of an engine sealed with Permatex Form A Gasket #2, a shellac-based adhesive designed to repair gasket leaks. For this event, Permatex had Bill France Sr. replace 28 solid gaskets in the car’s engine (standard clearances required keeping the cylinder head, fuel pump, and rear end gaskets).
Marion left New York City March 1, 1936, and headed for Daytona where, a week later, he and the “Permatex Form A Gasket Test Car” won. That would be a great ending, but the promotion continued the next day as Marion headed to Texas for the remainder of the trip. Marion made stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, and Chicago before the journey ended back in New York City. With the engine still in perfect nick, he drove the car on a daily basis, even racing it throughout the summer of 1936.
In September, when finally disassembled, it had run a full 22,297 miles since being sealed with Permatex Form A Gasket #2. The company used the event to fulfill the sponsorship at the consumer level by featuring it in its advertising, including a 16-page promotional brochure complete with “how-to” shots and a first-person account by Marion. In 1975, the company replicated Marion’s drive/promotion with Bobby Allison running a 300-mile test at Talladega Superspeedway. His stock car featured an engine sealed with Permatex products and averaged 157.094 over the 300-mile test with no breakdowns.
70 Despite costing as little as 10 cents, attempts to make money by selling tickets often failed because spectator areas were not clearly defined and were often overrun by non-paying customers. This was certainly true at the first Daytona Beach and Road Course event; the City of Daytona lost an estimated $22,000 promoting the inaugural beach stock car race. The Daytona Elks Club took over the promotion of the race in 1937 and suffered the same financial fate. For the 1938 race, local gas station owner Bill France Sr. took over the promotion of the Daytona race and charged a modest 50 cents a ticket. In an effort to sell more tickets and run off non-paying onlookers, France posted signs stating “Beware of Alligators” around various parts of the ocean-side Daytona Beach track layout. France sold 5,000 tickets and split the profits with promotional partner and race car owner Charlie Reece. Based on that success, France decided to continue his promotional events and the first thing he did for the 1939 Daytona Beach race was double the price of admission from fifty cents to one dollar.
Race officials line up the competitors prior to the drop of the green flag at the first Daytona Beach Stock Car race March 8, 1936. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
