It was Armistice Day, 1938 (Now known as Veteran's Day) when a North Georgia businessman and soon-to-be inducted Georgia Racing Hall of Fame member, Frank Christian had rented the Lakewood Fairgrounds facility and invited some of the best moonshine trippers, and then stock car drivers to compete on the 1 mile, dirt track with a lake in the center. Just weeks before, Christian had been traveling to his home in Dahlonega, Georgia, just north of Dawsonville when he looked off the road and pulled over to observe what looked like old trip cars running circles around each other. He also noticed that there was quite a crowd of locals gathered to stand and watch their friends and neighbors beating one another in an auto race. He then decided to give the guys a safer and more professional venue to again, test their skills. Red Vogt was named Technical Director of the "1938 National Stock Car Racing Championship"; even though there was only just one race, it was considered a championship title. Red was still allowed to hold such a title, even though he built three of the cars that were entered and even owned one of them - a Chrysler, which was even attempted to be protested, but after Vogt announced that he might just have to pull some of his cars out of the race, the protest was quickly overturned. It is unknown how many cars actually started the race, but I can say such names such as Bob and Fonty Flock, Roy Hall, Lloyd Seay, Smokey Purser, Bill France, and even Red Byron (making his first stock car racing start) competed in the race. In fact, Byron, driving his 1929 Model A, claimed that he had won the race and infact, lap the eventual winner, Lloyd Seay, was his protest was overturned. There are theories that the sanctioning board didn't want to give the win to an outsider, when they could keep the local favorite that was already flagged as the winner. Nonetheless, the first Stock Car Race in Georgia was wrote into the history books, and Vogt was the chief mechanic and car builder of it - Lloyd Seay's 34' Ford Roadster, that had 'Hemphill Service Station' on the side (One of many of Raymond Parks' lucrative business opertaions). Seay's cousin, Parks' other driver, and another Vogt prepared car, driven by Roy Hall, placed second. The race was actually cut short due to lack of lighting.
Since the 1938 season of stock car racing had come and gone within one race, 1939 was to be a fresh start. In the early months of the year, Raymond Parks had bought two brand new Ford Standard Coupe's, each for just $535 and delivered them straight to Vogt's Spring Street Garage. Within a matter of days, Vogt and one of his trusted assistants, Buckshot Morris, had finely tuned each car. Both were identical, except for the white number that was painted on the door. The car for Seay, was painted #7, while Roy Hall chose #14. In the days before the war when future NASCAR founder, Bill France, piloted one of the Parks/Vogt cars, it was #21, so all of the Raymond Parks car were within 7 digits of each other. Each of the cars were black, with "Hemphill Service Station" on the panel behind the door, and "Red Vogt's Garage" was placed on the roof above the door. Each race that "The Team" traveled to carried this same look and Vogt was responsible for putting Parks' racecars back to factory spec (minus the speed parts of course). No matter how bad one was damaged, by the next week, the cars had new paint, fresh letters and body parts. Vogt was a known perfectionist and he took great pride in keeping the cars he worked looking good in addition to keeping the mechanics of the Ford V-8's in tip-top shape. Vogt really set the footsteps of how professional racing shops operate today. As far back as when he opened 'Red Vogt's Garage' in the late 1920's, he sported pristine, bleached white pants and a white t-shirt and black shoes, every day. He also hated dust, grime and grease in his shop. If he wasn't doing it, he would have an employee shine and polish his large array of tools until they would put off a mirror image. The same went for his floors - they had to be sparkling, or he wasn't happy. Now-a-days in today modern racing shop, every employee wears a clean uniform and everything has to be clean at all times, or sometimes, an employee could get fired over it.
As I said before, records are scarce from pre-war racing, so it difficult to know exactly how many wins Vogt has as a car builder, but it is safe to say before 1950, he easily scored hundreds of wins. Vogt continued to build cars primarily for Raymond Parks, but as his famous sign in his garage proclaimed "Speed Equals Money", meaning that if you gave him the cash, Red would prepare a car that could outrun the Parks' cars; but then again, Raymond Parks had an almost unlimited budget for his racing operation, not because he made money, heck, he lost money even he won a race, but because "The Team" (Raymond, Red Vogt, Lloyd Seay, and Roy Hall) enjoyed it. Around 1941, Parks even bought a brand new Ford flatbed truck for Vogt to use to haul the two racecars to racetracks across the East Coast.
By the summer of 41', Vogt had prepared the cars of three, going on four Daytona Beach races, a huge accomplishment. During the month of August, Lloyd Seay had taken Vogt's Ford and won 3 races within 9 days, ending on Labor Day, September 1st. At Daytona, Seay started 15th, and by lap 2, he was in the lead, and kept the lead until the end of the race. Vogt and his few employees that tagged along completed a 4-tire and gas pit stop in just under a minute, unheard of for the time. It was into the mid 1960's, when the famous Wood Brother's shaved off a pit-stop to about 45 seconds. In today's racing, the same pit stop consisting of changing four tires and refueling can take as little as 11.5 seconds, as fast as it took me to read this sentence. The victory at Daytona was Seay's first and only in 5 starts. The March Daytona race ended Seay in 4th position, even after he flipped his car - twice. A few days later, he traveled to High Point, North Carolina and won what would be one of the last races held at the track. Just three days later, Seay would return to Lakewood, but not in his familiar black/silver 39' Ford Coupe. This time, for some reason, he returned in his first racecar that took the checkers for the first organized stock car race in Georgia - Lakewood 1938. Seay rolled up in a freshly tuned-by-Vogt 1934 Ford Roadster with a hand fabricated wooden rollcage, built by Vogt. In the three or four photos that have surfaced over the years of the car, you can clearly see the wooden top and rear of the seat. Also, for what would be his final race, Seay painted an 'X' over his familiar #7, and a #13 was written beside of it. Unlucky? You tell me. During the race, Seay started near the middle of the field, and by the mid-way point, he was battling for the lead with fellow Atlanta racer, Bob Flock. Seay would go on and win the race, and would talk with fans over the intercom system. Less than 24 hours later, the Dawson County Law Enforcement would be locking up Seay's killer and the coroner would be loading his body into a hearse. The morning after his 1941 National Racing Championship, Seay and his cousin, Woodrow Anderson got into a heated argument over Lloyd owing $5 to Anderson. He didn't believe that Seay was going to pay back the $5, and shot the rising racing star. It was a big loss for the entire small, but close racing community. One more race would be ran at Lakewood before the war, which was affectionately named the "Lloyd Seay Memorial 100". An Atlanta motorcycle turned stock car racer, Jap Brogden won the 100 mile race. Red Vogt was once more the technical director for the last time before World War II broke out in less than a month, for all auto racing was put as a halt for three years during the war.
Next week, I talk about Red Vogt's Post-War racing days.
