1001 NASCAR Facts. John Close
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Название: 1001 NASCAR Facts
Автор: John Close
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Автомобили и ПДД
isbn: 9781613254257
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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 СКАЧАТЬ