How Darlington Became Famous

It was September 4th of 1950, right outside of rural Darlington, South Carolina where some 30,000 fans showed to watch a new race, on a big track. The track was not only bigger than most racers of the time had seen, but it was also one of the first tracks that were paved. Atlantas Peach Bowl was also paved just a few months before this race. Hardly anyone knew how to prepare for a race this long, 500 miles. At the time, a 500 miler was only for custom built Indy cars, right? But these were Strictly Stock, now called Grand National cars, how would they ever hold up? A wealthy peanut farmer, named Harold Brasington had previously raced before. Hed ran Daytona in 1938 and he traveled up to Indianapolis in 1948, and it was after that, he had to have something like it. So the next year, he bought a large piece of property in Eastern South Carolina in 1949 and began carving an egg-shaped track. Brasington had signed on with a mid-western organization known as the Central States Racing Association to help promote the 500 mile event. But as it turned out, less than a month before the race, the 1.25 mile track wasnt completed and only 1 single driver had signed up for the race, and thats when Bill France stepped in. One of Big Bills rivals in promoting was Sam Nunis, and Sam was holding a Labor Day 500 mile event at the old Lakewood Speedway. France wanted no part of it as he knew several of his guys would compete in that; he had also been looking for the perfect venue to hold a rival 500 mile race. So when Brasington had contacted France, he immediately flew out to the incomplete track and agreed that if the track could be finished in time, France would sanction the race and promote it. France advertised the upcoming race heavily nationwide. He stated that he would have a $25,000 purse! Thats about the same as just over $235,000 in todays money. At the time, the biggest purse in all of stock car racing. And this was the biggest reason so many drivers pulled out from Nunis race to head north-east to Darlington. Basically, because so many had pulled out of his race, Sam Nunis had to cancel his Labor Day race. Just what Big Bill was hoping for. With the large purse, France had already signed up 75 drivers to compete in the 500 mile race. And almost every driver of those 75, had large V-8 powered cars, except for one, an Indy racer with AAA from California with a used Plymouth sedan powered by an inline 6. No way it could compete with Red Byrons Cadillac or Gober Sosebees Oldsmobile, right? While traveling to Darlington, Bill France stopped at a dealership in Winston-Salem North Carolina to buy the little Plymouth for $1700, less than a third of the cost of the Raymond Parks owned Cadillac that Byron was driving. With France was Curtis Turner, a Nascar official and Johnny Mantz, who would drive the car. Bill, Curtis and the official all chipped in to buy it for Mantz to race, but never told him that.

Since Mantz was just about the only driver that day with success in Indy cars, he was very much familiar with asphalt racing. He figured with the light Plymouth, and heavy-duty racing tires hed brought, he might just have the winning combination. Curtis Turner started first that day, as the field started three wide because of so many cars. He would lead 22 laps that day but would crash out early. It was Gober Sosebee from Dawsonville who lead the first 7 laps, but would blow a tire and never lead again that day. And problems like that was just starting. Since the track was still freshly paved, before the race, sand was swept onto the surface to try and soak up any tar or oil from the track. With the hot September heat, the sand didnt really do its job, and the sun really just baked it on the surface, so when the race was started, and all the fast cars were driving over the asphalt and sand mixed together, it was like sandpaper running on the tires. Red Byron was in third place, taking his time behind the leaders early on, but soon felt his right front go soft, he pulled in and Red Vogt and company went to work. Red Vogt was like the Wood Brothers, just a decade before them. He and Raymond Parks had brought air gun, in 1950! Back then, it was nice if you had a regular old, lug wrench. Vogts tools were much like the tools you see on a pit-stop today, top-notch. With Red Vogt, his assistant, Buckshot Morris and even Raymond Parks himself, they were able to get the big Cadillac back out on the track in usually somewhere around a minute. I have a picture in fact of Raymond on his knees in his nice clothes with the silver air wrench changing the right-front tire! Once Red Byron was back out onto the track, he couldnt keep it there as hed have to come in usually every 30 miles or so. It even got to where Vogt ran out of tires, and he had brought an entire box truck of new white-wall tires. First, Raymond gave the ones off of his personal Cadillac, then about 30 laps later, the #22 came in once again. During the times that he wasnt in the pits for new tires, Raymond and Buckshot Morris were searching the infield for good tires off a passenger. Most of the time, Raymond would offer the owner a couple of bills from his thick wad of cash from his pocket, but one or two times if they were in a real hurry, they would wait until someone went to the concession stand or the outhouse and simply borrow them.

Anyway, during the race, Johnny Mantz in his trusty old Plymouth, slowly came into the lead. He had qualified 35^th, then took it to a moonshiner turned mechanic in North Carolina named Hubert Westmoreland, who tuned it up and put the hard rubber tires on. During the actual race, the inline 6 was still one of the slowest cars on the track with cars like Bryons and Curtis Turner always passing him coming out of the pits, but because of the special tires Johnny had, he only had to make a stop for tires, 3 times during the entire 500 mile race, while Red Byron and others made over 2 dozen. The race was a lot like the Brickyard 400 from a couple years back, when Good-year had brought a bad tire and the field made a stop about every 10 laps.

Amazingly, the race lasted over 6 hours. Johnny Mantz had been declared the winner, with Red Byron finishing second. But after a protest, Fireball Roberts had been bumped up to second as scorers say he had completed one more lap that the #22, still Roberts was 8 laps behind. Then Red Vogt protested that something had to be illegal with the winning Plymouth. Some say it was to cover up what might have been on the Parks Novelty Cadillac, but all Vogt was worried about was how a Plymouth couldve out ran a Cadillac, the best in the business!? Along with the protest Vogt started was all the top 5 finishers including Byron, who demanded to Bill France that the car be stripped down. France could not have his own racecar torn down and inspected, but since there were so many irate drivers, it wouldve looked bad on Frances part, especially since a bootlegger was the man who last messed with the car. So he told Al Crisler, the chief inspector to tear down anything that Vogt asked to see. Now whats ironic about this was that Westmoreland, was the owner of the car who supposedly won the first ever Nascar Strictly Stock race in Charlotte just the year before, but both his car and his driver, Glenn Dunaway were disqualified for illegal modifications. But still, there had to have been something illegal with the France owned Plymouth, after all, it was a car that had the power of all the other cars, ran almost 40 mph slower and was driven by a guy who had been sobered up the morning of the race, plus his only other stock car experience had been shut off by crashing in the first lap.

When Bill France returned to the track the next day to close out all the ticket sales, etc, he found Vogt in the garage with every nut and bolt of that Plymouth on the floor, Vogt was still trying to figure out how a Plymouth couldve beaten a Cadillac. Hed even called two different Chrysler dealerships throughout the night to see if a part on the car was in fact stock or not, he had been denied both times. It was finally mid-morning of the next day when the protest had been called off and the winning car was declared legal by all inspectors. This would be close to the end of Vogt being Nascars top mechanic, as he was overwhelmed with so many new rules, some made up the day of the race.

Now if I would have told you before-hand that a 6-cylendar Plymouth beat dozens of V-8s, would you believed me??

-Cody