Charlotte ~ Bright Lights and Dark Days

50 Years of NASCAR Racing ~ Post 4

By Matt McLaughlin

Editor's note: This article is part of a special reprise of Matt McLaughlin's "50 Years of NASCAR Racing", written and published  in 1998 in commemoration of NASCAR 's 50th Anniversary celebration that year. In keeping with the RacersReunion mission of passing the history of our sport down to younger fans, Matt has kindly granted us permission to run the entire series. Please, sit back and enjoy as you take a journey back through the pages of history and perhaps relive a memory or two. Many thanks to Matt for his generosity in sharing. God bless you, my friend.

The Charlotte Motor Speedway is considered one of the crown jewel circuits in the Winston Cup schedule, and the track has a rich history for producing some of the most exciting races ever, but there have also been some dark days in the track's history.

Charlotte seemed to be born under a dark cloud, the brainchild of Curtis Turner, one of the great racers of the day. Unfortunately, he was not a great businessman as well, and from the outset the track was in deep financial trouble. It was discovered that the area of the current turn one was solid granite beneath the soil and the costs of blasting nearly doubled the budgeted amount to complete the track. The inaugural event had to be pushed back a month owing to the construction delays, and like New Hampshire and more recently Gateway, the track surface was not properly cured and came up even in practice, leaving huge potholes. Many cars were equipped with heavy grated screens over the windshield and grill to prevent flying rocks from damaging the car or injuring a driver. Joe Lee Johnson (no relation to Junior) won that first event, which was further marred by poor fan turn out and confusion over the entrance to pit road that wound up with five drivers, including both Lee and Richard Petty being disqualified.