For ten years before the first Daytona 500 was held at Bill France's magnificent new Superspeedway, NASCAR's Grand National Division ran on the storied old Beach and Road course in Daytona Beach, in what was considered the biggest event on the tour's calendar. While the race had run prior to NASCAR's arrival on the scene (starting in 1936), and in fact, Bill France had promoted some of those races, it was with the second "Strictly Stock" (the forefather of the Grand National division) that the event grew in stature to one of the crown jewels of the circuit that helped decide the National champion.
The Beach and Road course used a section of state highway A1A as a front straight. At the end of that straight the racers entered the beach, rounding a big wide corner that led out onto the shoreline, which served a back straight and up into the sweeping North corner that led back out onto the highway. While the course varied a bit in measured length it averaged about 4.15 miles. Of course, there were problems with running on the beach. Depending on the tide, the back straight could be either narrow or wide. Races had to be timed to avoid high tide. Ruts quickly formed in the sand and got deeper as the race progressed, eventually getting deep enough an out of shape race car could hook a rut and flip over. The only thing that kept an errant race car out of the surf was sheer good luck. The sand played havoc with engines, bearings and brakes, and the salty air destroyed electrical systems. Mist off the ocean often required running the windshield wipers down the back straight to see where you were going, and sand would pit and streak the windshields. Still the course provided some exciting racing as well as a lots of tourist dollars for the Daytona Beach community.
The first NASCAR sanctioned race on the Beach and Road course took place July 10th, 1949. Twenty-eight drivers showed up to have a go at the big $2000 prize, and 5,000 fans showed up to see the action. There were three female drivers among the competitors that day. Ethel Flock Mobley was the top finisher of the distaff gender coming home 11th. Louise Smith had the misfortune of putting her Ford on its roof, but with the aid of some helpful spectators managed to get it back right side up and went onto to finish 20th. Gober Sosebee led the first 34 laps, but got sideways in the North turn, allowing Red Byron, who went on to be NASCAR's first "Strictly Stock" champion, around. Byron led the rest of the race in one of the hot new Oldsmobile "Rocket" 88s, leading a 1-2-3-4 finish for that brand. Byron had one minute and fifty one second lead at the end and averaged almost 81 miles per hour for the distance. In fact, only 11 cars were listed as running at the end of the event and 6 of them were Oldsmobiles. Oldsmobile was well pleased with the sudden sales surge of their factory hot rod, the 88.
The 1950 running of the beach and road course moved to the more traditional month of February and was the inaugural race of the 1950 season. The "Strictly Stock" name had given way to the "Grand National" division, a name that stuck until 1971. Harold Kite, in his first NASCAR start, used his experience as a military tank driver to pilot his huge '49 Lincoln over the tough and rutted beach sections of the course. Defending champion Red Byron took the lead on lap 15, but his pit stop and a second stop for a jammed gear-shifting linkage dropped him from the lead, and Kite took the point again. While Kite led unmolested to cruise to a 53-second lead, Byron thrilled the spectators with a wide open sprint to overtake second place Lloyd Moore, capping off the comeback with a last lap pass to take the second position. Attendance was up to 9,500 people, though the winner's purse was down to $1500. Some things always seem to stay the same.
The fact that 54 cars showed up for the 1951 Beach and Road course classic shows how popular NASCAR racing was becoming. The crowd swelled to 14,000 people, a huge number by the day's standards. The locals were thrilled by a hometown boy, Marshall Teague, who was surprisingly strong in a family owned Hudson Hornet. No one seemed to have anything for early NASCAR legend Tim Flock driving a big honking '50 Lincoln, but a bad pit stop dropped Flock out of top spot; the hometown hero took the lead and was never headed. Teague did have one close call, when a trackside press photographer decided a photo of that car taken in the middle of the track would look good on the front page. That paper almost contained the journalist's obituary as Teague was just barely able to avoid hitting him.
20,000 folks showed up to see the 61 entered drivers compete in the 1952 Daytona event. The vast throng proved to be a logistical nightmare, and the race had to be delayed to give everyone time to fight the traffic, find a parking space and get to a seat. Again some things never seem to change. The delay would prove costly, as high tide was going to cause the event to have to end early. Herb Thomas, driving a team car for defending champion Marshall Teague, led the first lap, but Teague himself took the lead on lap two. As the tide came in and began narrowing the back straight, Bill France realized the back straight was going to be sub-aquatic before the race could go the distance. Word was passed around the pits on lap 27 that there would be ten more laps. Teague had built up a huge lead, so he eased out of the throttle so he could run the distance without a pit stop. Thomas came home second. Tragedy was narrowly averted when seventh place finisher Tommy Thompson lost control racing to the stripe and hit flag man Johnny Bruner, who was thrown ten feet into the air but, miraculously enough, not badly hurt.
Teague did not come back to defend his two consecutive titles in 1953, having defected to the rival AAA stock car league. Bob Pronger took the pole for that event at a blistering (by standards of the day) 115.77 miles per hour and had the privilege of leading the field of 57 cars to the stripe. The irrepressible Pronger made a bet with outside pole man Fonty Flock as to who would lead that first lap. The bet must have been for a considerable sum as both drivers went hells bells for that first lap. As they entered the North Corner, the two drivers were playing chicken, neither willing to lift. Finally Flock got out of the throttle and slammed on the brakes. Pronger won the race into the corner but was going far too fast to make the turn. Pronger's Oldsmobile crashed through the guard rail, flipped down a sand bank, and sent spectators scrambling as he appeared to be heading into the grandstands. The Olds came down on four wheels and Pronger drove off, but was soon sidelined by mechanical problems caused by the wreck... and he lost the bet too. Meanwhile, Fonty backed off to a more manageable pace but was still turning laps kissing close to 90 MPH. He seemed to have the race well in hand leading right up until the white flag. Crossing the line, his Delta 88 ran out of gas. A helpful teammate, Slick Smith, a lap off the pace, saw Fonty's predicament and pushed the car back to the pits with his car, but Bill Blair, who had been fully a minute and five seconds behind when Flock's car ran dry, managed to take the win. Flock returned to the track in time to take second. Tommy Thompson finished third and was kind enough not to run over the flag man again.
27,000 fans showed up for what was billed as the last race on the Beach and Road course in 1954. Bill France was boldly predicting that his new high banked superspeedway would be ready for the 1955 staging of the event. (As it turned out he was a little off…about four years off.) Still, there were 62 cars on hand, the weather was perfect and the racers put on a memorable show. Lee Petty set pole speed at 123 MPH plus in a big Hemi Chrysler and was a pre-race favorite. During the race Fonty's brother, Tim Flock seemed to have Petty's measure, and he did indeed beat Lee to the line by almost a minute and a half. Third place went to Buck Baker, who had overcome the minor annoyance of not having any brakes by throwing his car sideways into the corners to scrub off speed. After the race though, Tim Flock was disqualified. The carb in his Olds was found to have polished bores to increase airflow, and the butterflies that were held to the throttle shaft by screws in a production car, had been soldered in place to keep the screw heads from obstructing the incoming air. Flock was so disgusted with the decision he quit NASCAR. Petty was declared the winner and Baker got a break and moved up to second, no brakes and all.
There was a new face at Daytona in 1955. Car owner Carl Kiekhaefer arrived with an immaculately prepared and lightning fast Chrysler 300, but no one to drive it. Kiekhaefer had decided stock car racing would be a fine way to advertise his Mercury Outboard marine engines, and like everything, he went about it full bore, jumping in with both feet. Ironically the driver he ended up with was Tim Flock, the driver who had quit NASCAR after being disqualified from the previous year's Daytona Race. Flock was making a comeback to NASCAR racing and needed a ride. Kiekhaefer needed a top name driver. The combination was perfect. Flock turned some heads by posting a 130 mile per hour plus qualifying speed. For a brand new team, Flock and the white Chrysler seemed to do extremely well in the race. holding down second for most of the race, but nobody had anything for Fireball Roberts that day. Roberts drove a 55 Buick (complete with wide whites and a hood hold down strap that wrapped around the hood ornament) sponsored by Fish Carburetor (the mysterious device that claimed to boost horsepower and mileage to unheard of levels that supposedly the big auto and gas companies killed off) at a blistering pace. In a double irony, Flock was later awarded a win when Roberts was disqualified when NASCAR tech director "Cannonball" Baker found the pushrods in Roberts' car were .016 of an inch too long. Lee Petty was credited with second place aboard another Chrysler.
When Carl Kiekhaefer returned to Daytona in 1956 he was well on his way to his ultimate goal of winning every NASCAR race run. In the five races prior to Daytona that year, three had gone to Kiekhaefer owned cars. Old Carl wasn't about to mess around at the biggest race of the year either. He entered six cars in the event. (As a historical footnote, one of them was driven by the first African-American ever to compete at Daytona, Charlie Scott. Scott placed 19th in the race, the second best finish in one of the Kiekhaefer cars.) By 1956 the cars were making huge horsepower that allowed even those overweight behemoths to run at frightening speeds. As such, the race will be recalled as "Flipper". While the television dolphin and his pals were a long way off, the rutted track conditions and high speeds combined to send a record number of cars rolling. Russ Truelove got the award for most consecutive flips, rolling his Ford about a dozen times. While the car was destroyed, Truelove endured. In the synchronized car flipping division the nod had to go to teammates Jim Wilson and Buddy Krebs, who rolled their identical appearing cars at the same time going into the south corner. (And were probably seeing double awhile as a result.) The Harry Houdini escape artist award went out to Junior Johnson who rolled his Pontiac three times, and battered the car up so badly Junior had to crawl out of the hole where the rear window once resided. But Ralph Moody showed how it was done, rolling his Mercury, landing on the wheels, speeding away without losing a single position, and going on to finish third. Of the record 76 starters, 20 were listed as running at the end of the event, which was two laps shy of the scheduled distance due to high tide. The Big Kahuna on the beach that day was Tim Flock in a Kiekhaefer Chrysler, who led flag to flag except for the four laps after his first pit stop.
Kiekhaefer had quit NASCAR after the fans started booing him and his team for dominating races, and for a highly questionable wreck at Shelby North Carolina, where one of the team cars took out title contender Herb Thomas in a wreck that wound up badly injuring Thomas. Kiekhaefer driver Buck Baker took the title but it was under a dark cloud. In the most thrilling beach race to date, Cotton Owens in a Pontiac and Paul Goldsmith in a Smokey Yunick prepped Chevy treated the crowd to a battle royal, with the two drivers swapping the lead five times. Lightning quick (by the standards of the day) pit work seemed to give the advantage to Goldsmith, whose crew managed a 47 second stop, while Owens crew took a tick over a minute. It was all for naught when Goldsmith blew an engine. Lee Petty was involved in a spectacular wreck during the race. In those days, when a car was disabled it was pushed to the side of the track, not towed away. Petty's windshield was so dirty and sandblasted he ran into one of those disabled cars in a corner, running at over 70 miles per hour. Owens went on to take the victory by 55 seconds in front of 35,000 fans and received a check for $4,250, a king's ransom by the standards of the day.
1958 was the swan song for the Beach and Road course in Daytona and it proved to be a thriller. Car prepared by two names that would go on to be legends in the sport battled it out right down to the checkers. Paul Goldsmith was back in a Smokey Yunick prepped Chevy, hoping to avenge the bad luck that had cost him a win in 1957. Curtis Turner was wheeling a Holman-Moody Ford. Goldsmith grabbed the pole position with at a blistering 140.5 MPH and led the race from the drop of the green. Turner maintained Goldsmith in his sights, and gave Smokey's driver all he could handle as 35,000 fans cheered the pair on. While Turner was trying to get around Goldsmith he unexpectedly came up on a lapped car and spun his big Ford trying to avoid a wreck. Turner's Ford ended up crashing through the surf, spraying water all over, but he wheeled the car around and rejoined the fight ten seconds behind Goldsmith. Goldsmith was having problems of his own. His windshield was pitted and his wipers had shorted. On the last lap Goldsmith literally missed the North corner and drove on up the beach. Realizing his mistake he did a bootlegger turn in the sand, drove back to the race course and hooked a hard right with Turner closing hard down on him. Goldsmith managed to lead Turner to the line by five car lengths to go down in the record books as the last driver to win on the Beach and Road course at Daytona.
In 1959 the Daytona speedway was the sight of the big February race in Daytona. Of course, the beach is still there and if you know where to look, the concrete south stands still exists. While you can still drive on the beach, ironically enough, for a city that boasts itself as the "Birthplace of Speed" the speed limit on the beach is 15 MPH. Radar enforced. But late at night if you close your eyes and listen out there on the beach, it's easy to believe the crashing of the surf is Curtis Turner taking an unexpected detour into the Atlantic, and some say if you listen very, very hard to the night wind you can still hear the sound….. of NASCAR officials disqualifying the apparent winner of a race.
At present, Matt is not taking email correspondence at RacersReunion. If you have comments, please leave them below and he will read them at his leisure.
If you've enjoyed your visit so far, we invite you to check out the Stock Car RacersReunion site by clicking here. By simply creating a log-in you will have access to over 100,000 vintage racing photos and thousands of articles, stories and conversations, some with legendary participants whose names you will recognize. As part of our racing family, you are free to enjoy the Chat Room and all Forums will be open for discussing your passion for racing with others of like mind. RacersReunion truly is where legends and fans unite.
