For Vogt, he and his assistant, Buckshot Morris, rented a box truck and loaded it with tools and tires. By the half-way point in the race, Vogt ran out of tires for Byron's Cadillac racecar. Vogt and Parks pondered for a minute and then decided to 'borrow' tires off of the spectators in the parking lot. Most fans they went to were honored to have their tires being mounted on one of the most popular drivers in NASCAR of it's early years. When they needed more tires, they would just simply take tires off cars and Raymond would slip a $20 or a $50 bill in the windshield wipers or in a cracked window. A rare picture can be seen of Raymond himself changing tires in his usual Sunday best - a fedora, tie, and a nice shirt and dress pants. What's even more unusual about Parks changing tires was that he was using an air gun - and this was in 1950. When the makeshift pit-crews of the times were lucky to change four tires, fill the gas tank and clean the windshield in around 1:10-1:20, Vogt and his crew could do the same work in about 40 seconds. It was later into the mid 60's when the Wood Brothers could shave off more time than that. It would wound up that the eventual winner, Johnny Mantz, never pitted for tires, just fuel. His secret - he used truck tires. Vogt immediately put out a protest, saying that "There's no way a Plymouth can beat a Cadillac.....no way!" Byron originally finished second, but was soon recounted as 3rd as Fireball Roberts had completed one more lap, and claimed second. Vogt then ordered his childhood friend, France to have his technical officials tear down Mantz' Plymouth down to the frame and bare engine block. For the first time in NASCAR's short history, Vogt was wrong, and didn't win in a protest. It was after this race that Raymond Parks was soon to get out of stock car racing, Red Byron would no longer go for three consecutive NASCAR titles, and Red Vogt would soon move away from Georgia after having a successful speed shop for over 20 years and head north, to North Carolina. The original 'team' of stock car racing would soon be no more.
Parks' main reason for walking away from Stock Car Racing was that even if he won a race, he lost money. In a 1947 interview with Red Byron and Fonty Flock, both drivers were quoted as saying that Parks spent atleast $20,000 up to the point of the interview, which was taken around September or October. Vogt would soon move to North Carolina and open up another Speed Shop. Within the next three years, Byron would move south to the beaches of Florida where he too opened up a speed shop that specialized in sports cars.
For Vogt, in the mid 50's, he worked on the cars of the Fish Carburetor team - the M-1 Buick Special driven by Fireball Roberts. The first time Vogt was back to protesting was at the 1955 Daytona Beach Grand National race in which Fireball was disqualified for a minor infraction - the pushrods were 0.016 too long. After that race, Vogt was released from the Bob Fish team and immediately found work with Carl Kiekhafer, working on Chrysler 300's. That stint didn't last too long and then Vogt worked with Pete DePaulo's factory Ford team. Vogt was successful with working with the 1956 Ford's driven mainly by Fireball Roberts and Curtis Turner. After DePaulo got on Red Vogt's nerves constantly, telling him that he was doing something wrong, or he shouldn't build this that way, Vogt left the team.
After that, Vogt would build very few racecars, even a Valiant for Marvin Panch in NASCAR's short lived 'economy car series' in the early 60's. Vogt built a car for Tiny Lund in 1968 and that was the last car that he built professionally.
Vogt passed away on March 7, 1991 at the age of 86. It was exactly one week later that a former friend and driver, Roy Hall, too passed away. Red was inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame (Darlington) in 1980 and the TRW/NASCAR Mechanics Hall of Fame (inaugural ceremony) in 1987. He was also among the inaugural class to the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame in 2002 where his name was represented among Raymond Parks, Lloyd Seay, Roy Hall and Red Byron among others.
And with that, I hope you enjoyed the history of Stock Car Racing's first "Master Mechanic"
