1001 NASCAR Facts. John Close

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ