1001 NASCAR Facts. John Close

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ