Help Decipher The Mysteries Of The First NASCAR Season

I've noticed quite a few odd things about the 1948 season and it's so frustrating that NASCAR, or even racing historians, have skipped over that first year like it didn't even count or exist. I can't even count how many times I've read on supposedly reputable websites that NASCAR's first race was June 19, 1949.The whole lack of knowledge and clarity of the very first season of this massive racing organization so many follow and enjoy is completely pathetic and miserably inadequate.

* The first oddity I've noticed is the multiple races on the same day. Nothing strange for that time to have a "Double Feature", two points races on the same day at the same track, but I'm talking about multiple races on the same day in different states. Sometimes as many as 3 races in different states on a single day. I don'treally understand how that worked when everyone couldn't be at the same race.

* Another oddity is Johnny Rogers' win at Dover N.J.. I know he was mostly a northern driver who raced in different sanctioning bodies in that region, but he doesn't show up in the points standings. Maybe just a typographical error? I don't know.

* Another oddityI've heard mention isthat NASCAR sanctioned many more races than the historically mentioned 52. I've seen people mention this in various discussions on the internet over the past few years. Here is one comment from memoryI was able to track down from a blog post on NCpedia.com-

The notion that NASCAR

Robert, I too get very frustrated with the treatment of NASCAR's inaugural 1948 season.

I hope you don't mind if pass along the 1948 winners page you have posted to the Richmond track. Some rocket scientist there decided to spend the entire year celebrating "60 Years of NASCAR" at Richmond during the 2012 season, because they ran their first Grand National race in 1953.

Only problem, as I have repeatedly pointed out to them, is that on May 16, 1948 - 65 years ago - they ran the very first NASCAR race in the Commonwealth of Virginia. That was a NASCAR Modified race, won, of course, by Red Byron.

Even folks you would never think would make these errors do make them. When I worked at Richmond I once read a Martinsville news release written by a very good friend, the late Dick Thompson, claiming credit for the first Virginia NASCAR race and the first Virginia NASCAR telecast at the Martinsville track.

I had to correct Dick on both counts. He was shocked to learn that the Richmond race was the first Virginia NASCAR race, followed by two Danville NASCAR races before Martinsville held the 4th Virginia NASCAR race.

And, as I pointed out to Dick, the first Virginia NASCAR telecast was from Richmond in 1965 when ABC's Wide World of Sports telecast Junior Johnson winning the Richmond 250.

Being the gracious individual that he was, Dick immediately issued a news release correcting both Martinsville mistakes. I do note, however, that the first Virginia NASCAR telecast thing has crept back into some of the current Martinsville media materials.

Thanks for this very informative post.

You're right, I couldn't count how many times I see the first season or first Nascar race being in 1949. It's alright if you say FIRST Strictly Stock, Grand National, or Cup, but not first Nascar race. Nascar already had the modifieds and roadsters in 48' and wanted Strictly Stock, but Detroit was still producing basically re-designed pre-war models. When ever I see something about Raymond Parks from Nascar, they always say "Owner of first Nascar Championship - 1949." I also remember about two years ago when they (Speed) was at the Nascar Hall of Fame reveling that years nominees and Kyle Petty of all people said something to the affect of this, which he was just reading the script, but..."Raymond's car driven by Red Byron won the first Nascar Championship in 1949. Even though Raymond won just TWO Nascar sanctioned races, that's still Hall of Fame material" ??????? 2 Nascar Wins?!?!?! Do you not think that Kyle would remember the interview Kyle Petty done with Raymond for TNT just a few years before. I DO know how to count, and I just counted 31 out of 52 races that one of Raymond Parks' cars won in 1948. That's just a little more than two....

On another note, talking about how France took away points from the 'outlaw' drivers who ran other series.....Mrs. Vaudell Sosbee (Gober's widow) has told me several times before that on more than one occasion in the early days, Gober went to drive in either the AAA or the NSCRA whether it be for more money or just the distance to the track, while he was in Nascar. When France heard about this, he took away ALL of Sosebee's points and told him that he would have to pay a fine to come back to one of his races again. It turned out that Bill France PAID Gober to come to his next race just because fans had found out that Sosebee wasn't going to be racing and threatened to leave...hah!

Just to add a little further confusion, Martinsville Speedway held it's first race in 1948 on Sunday, September 7th, and most assume it was a NASCAR sanctioned race, but it was not. It was sanctioned by the NCSCA (National Championship Stock Car Association).

I have on my photo pages that program plus actual NASCAR entry blanks from 1948 that are from my personal collection. One is for the June 6th race in Lexington, NC at Lakeview Speedway (the 19th sanctioned race), and the other is for Greensboro Fairgrounds on June 20th (the 25th sanctioned race).

One of Greg Fielden's books has a rundown schedule of 1948 listed in it, but I do not remember which book.

Great info, Billy. Taking into account that there where many other sanctioning bodies in 1948, it leads me to speculate the rules and regulations were pretty much the same among them. And Big Bill probably just "borrowed" them to use for NASCAR with a minor tweek hereor there. Therefore I may never find a rules book for that year. But since that first season they called the cars "Modified" I'm guessing that were the same as the '49, '50, '51... modifieds which allowed two carburetors, camshaft mods, and wheel and brake upgrades.I'm taking what you're saying as - inthe 1948 season you could run a modified, or even a less modified "Sportsman" type car as long as it met the other basic regulations. Possiblyeven a roadsteralso if needed to fill the field?

Dave, with morediscussions like this one maybe we'll start to set the record straight about the beginning of NASCAR. Feel free to pass on the 1948season results page to Richmond. It's mind-boggling that the track doesn't even know it's own history!

Great story about Gober Sosbee. Goes to show, the fans (customers) really have the power when it comes right down to it.

Now an embarassing question I should aready know... Was there a 3rd Parks car in '48? I know 2 were Red Byron #22, and Bob Flock #14. Their wins would add up to 16 if I saw right. Who was the other 15? I thought Fonty Flock drove the Joe Wolf #47?

Nevertheless, the Georgia drivers dominated back then.

Bob and Fonty would switch off on the #14 (usually.) Sometimes, Raymond did field a third car. In fact. Red Vogt brought three Raymond Parks' cars to Daytona in 1948. One for Red Byron, one for Bob Flock (Fonty was in the #1 Al Dykes' Special) and Raymond Parks drove the third entry. Towards the end of the race as Red was leading Bob, Flock's spindle broke on his car. When Raymond saw this (he was running third at the time) He pulled into the pits and gave up his seat to Bob, who went out and managed to finish in the top 5. This was one of only two times that Raymond ever drove in a race. (Pre-War Langhorne was the other and I don't know anything about it).

The reason I said 31 wins was that I didn't want to cut anyone short. In other words without looking it up, there were 31 possible wins by the Parks team. All the ones by Byron and B. Flock all go to Raymond, I'd just have to go into research about how many Fonty won for him in 1948 since he switched teams so much that year. So I'd venture to say somewhere near the 20's.

Sorry about that!

-Cody

N.B., did you mean September 7, 1947 for Martinsville? Their first race in '48 was on July 4th won by Fonty Flock. Peace Haven had a non points race the next day won by Curtis Turner. I'm wondering why the race wasn't counted?

The Fielden book is NASCAR Chronicle. The schelule in the book looks to be the same as the one above (probably taken from the book). It's a very good book and one of the few that does tell a little of the 1948 season. Thanks for prompting me to get it out. It helped explain to me what Billy was referring to above.

Well, I learnt something new. I didn't realize Fonty sometimes drove a Parks car. Great info, thanks!

I thought Billy was saying in 1948 sometimes Big Bill would let all different types of cars in a race to fill the field. I guess I misunderstood.

Robert... N.B. did mean 1947 .

Here are his photos from his personal collection that N.B. has posted on his profile page of that 1947 Martinsville NCSCA race program cover and entry list:

Wow, that's an incredible find. The list of drivers is amazing. N.B., when at you going to open up a museum?

Here is a great example of how bad NASCAR is on it's own history. This is a video of the NASCAR Hall Of Fame "Historian" stating that NASCAR had "about 32 races" in '48?. Come on!! This should be common knowledge, especially to the NASCAR Historian, that there were 52 races. At least he knew 1948 was the first season, lol.

Link:

Glad it's not just me questioning why so many historical mistakes keep coming out of "our" Hall of Fame. Add that one to the Richard Petty becoming famous when his Hemi "Dodge" won the 1964 Daytona 500 in 1964 as the HOF show on Richard stated last week.

Looking after Bill Tuthill's Museum of Speed and being the spokesman for the NASCAR Hall of Fame obviously call for a different skill set.

Yup, when Bob Flock got injured in Sept. of 1947, brother Fonty took over the #14 Parks' Ford, and he won the NSCRA National Championship that year, just beating his own teammate (Byron) by about 30 points.

Cody, do you know who drove the 14A in 1947? I've seen a photo from 1947 of cars lined up for a start at an unidentified track that shows both the #14 Parks car and the #14A Parks car. Both had similar two color paint schemes. The 14A had red on top and white on the bottom with red numbers, and the 14 had white on top, red on the bottom with gold numbers. I'm assuming Red Byron was driving the #22 but I don't see it in the photo.

Also, do you or anyone else here know the list of tracks the NSCRA and NCSCA raced at in 1946 & 47?

That would either be Roy Hall, or Raymond Parks. Roy Hall was the original driver of the #14 in the pre-war days, and in 1946. He was in and out of jail, so he couldn't be dependable. So Raymond hired Bob Flock to drive the 14 full time in 1947. Roy drove when he wasn't in jail. And sometimes, only a couple, Raymond drove the car.

About the colors of the 14 - White top with red bottom was the paint scheme of the #14 from 1941 to mid 1947. At this time (late 1946-early 1947) Red Byron's #22 had the same scheme. Then for what ever reason, Raymond (or Red Vogt) changed the colors to red top with white bottom on 14, and solid black on 22.

Robert,

Not 1947, but wondered if you've seen the photo of the 3/26/1951 Herb Thomas NASCAR Pit Pass for "Peach Haven" for I guess a Modified-Sportsman race as posted by Laverne Zachary from the Bill King collection on RR several years ago.

Link to photo:

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/photo/bill-king-collection?contex...

Yes I saw that, Dave. As you're aware,I'm a fanatic about Peace Haven artifactsso I appreciate you looking out for me! Laverne posted it twice and I replied about it on the other. It is a misspelling by I'm guessing Herb himself. He drove in the Sportsman race of a Modified & Sportsman event.Here is the race results out of the 1952 NASCAR yearbook -

Also, notice that Billy Myers won the Sportsman race, got into the Modified race, and just about won that one too driving his Sportsman car. What an awesomeracer he was.

Another interesting twist to the 1948 season was according to Greg Fielden's NASCAR The Complete

History around August 20th a number of scheduled events were cancelled due to an outbreak of polio

in North Carolina.

Curiosity question, Robert - do you know if 10th place finisher in the 3/26/51 Modified race, Ted Swaim is/was kin to Mike Swaim?

Mike Swaim #63 Busch Series car at Daytona 1988

Laverne, I didn't know that.

Found this interesting summary of NC Triad Polio situation in the North Carolina Nursing History archives of Appalachian State University, specifically referring to Greensboro and Winston-Salem:

Greensboro area citizens suffered from a polio epidemic in 1948. The community came together to confront this acute crisis, and the custom of racial segregation was temporarily set aside to provide emergency care to all affected children. While healthcare facilities in Greensboro would remain officially segregated for another 15 years, during the summer of 1948 in the emergency polio hospital, white and black patients shared wards, and nurses of both races worked side by side to treat the sick.
An article in the Kansas City Plain Dealer conveyed the need for African American nurses to help in the 1948 North Carolina epidemic:
In response to the urgent need for nurses in sections of North Carolina seriously affected by infantile paralysis, Negro nurses in scattered localities throughout the country are following the lead of twelve Southern Negro nurses volunteering for polio duty, the American Red Cross reported this week. All Negro nurses available for service are urged to register as soon as possible with their Red Cross chapter. The Red Cross functions as a recruiting agency when local nursing resources are depleted; salaries and transportation of nurses assigned are paid by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.
Three Negro nurses recruited through Red Cross national headquarters during the past few days are among those who will serve on polio duty in N.C. Mrs. Gladys Johnson of Fort Worth, Tex., former Red Cross itinerant nursing instructor in Midwestern States, will serve as supervisor in the polio wards at the Kate Bitting Reynolds Memorial Hospital in Winston-Salem and Estelle Coles, a recent graduate of Freedmans Hospital School of Nursing in Washington, DC, has also has been assigned there. Earlier in the week Manna Beaman, Richmond, volunteered for service and was assigned to St. Agnes Hospital, Raleigh.
Plain Dealer; Date: 08-13-1948, Volume: 25; Issue: 31; Page: [6]

And this, too:

The polio epidemic of 1948 struck harder in the North Carolina Piedmont than in any other part of the country. By raw count, Los Angeles County, Calif. and Harris County, Texas had more total cases, but no county had more people infected per capita than Guilford, wrote John S. Stevenson in a 1966 article for The North Carolina Medical Journal. Across North Carolina, 2,516 polio cases were reported in 1948, according to state health records, compared with 300 the year before and 229 the year after.

I can not say for sure Dave but I believe it is the same family. I have come across the Swaim name in research on the Bennett Speedway and Rockingham Speedway during the mid-50's.

Thanks, Dennis.

Dave, I would guess no relation. Ted died of cancer around late 1990. He did have kids, and I've talked to a few of his close friends from his racing days but no one mentioned any other racers in his family. I was told "Gooney Bird" as his friends called him, got out of racing in the late 50's to raise horses, his other passion. Everyone I've spoken to about Ted said the same thing - he was one of the best drivers they'd ever seen, and the nicest, funniest guy you'd ever meet.

One of my favorite photos of Ted at Daytona mid 50'sfrom Clyde Mangum's collection -

Here's a great pic of Gooney Bird sliding through turn 4 at Greensboro -

Very interesting, Laverne. I've never heard of this.

Come to think of it, a good friend of mine's father got a football scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill in 1948 but caught Polio from someone in the school cafeteria before he ever played his first game. He recovered but had to wear leg braces for the rest of his life. He never complained andwent on to becomea successful business man and an inspiration to everyone that knew him.

Perry, thanksfor bringing this race up. The July 5, 1948 Spartanburg race makes 3 big stock car races that day that were supposed to have many big names. Habersham Speedway in Georgia, Peace Haven Speedway in NC, and Spartanburg in SC. It seems all these tracks were fighting over the big name drivers to come to their track, but none ended up getting a NASCAR sanction.

Check out the Habersham Speedway page at Georgia Racing History.com - http://georgiaracinghistory.com/habersham-speedway/

And here is the ad and race results article for Peace Haven (Winston-Salem Speedway) -

I'm thinking there's no way any of these drivers could have made it to more than one of these races, but decided which one to go to depending on how much appearance money they were paid?

Thanks for the facts Robert, I should know better than to assume, I guess you know what that makes me. In my Bennett Speedway research I found the name Ted Swain but I think it was mis-spelled as I have not run across it spelled that way anywhere else but have seen Swaim in many places during the mid 50's.

Dennis, that probably was Ted Swaim just misspelled. He raced everywhere from Langhorne to Daytona, and Bennett was relatively close to his home inWinston-Salem so I wouldn't doubt he raced there a few times. I don't think he was related to Mike Swaim though, but it's certainly possible. North Carolina has lots of Swaims, a Scottish name I believe. There's a bunch of Swaims in W-S.

And again, your Bennett Speedway research was great stuff. If I ever come across anything on Bennett I'll let you know.

Perry,great tip on the Google Newspapers.I found the July 5, 1948race results for Spartanburg. You didn't scroll far enough!

I'm starting to believe "the list" of 52 races of 1948 is right. Of the other races in question, none of them I've seenhad an advertisment or race article that mentioned NASCAR or Bill France being involved.

Also, every race advertisment from any of the 52 races on the list of 1948 that I've seenused this official ad image -

The other races didget the big name drivers, but were under another sanction or a track rules race.

In 1949 NASCAR used this ad image -

I went and dug up some early '48 race ads, and I'll have to correct myself that the fancy NASCAR ad image didn't come along until probably around mid year. But before that the ads for a NASCAR race still mentioned them being a Bill France promoted race.

Here's two stock car races on the same day, one NASCAR and one not -

Greensboro Fairgrounds Night RaceMay 29th - North Wilkesboro May 30th - Both NASCAR -

Mt. Airy Speedway - not NASCAR -

Here's the first ad I could find with the fancy NASCAR image -

Lakeview Speedway near Lexington -

Last race for North Carolina in '48at Peace Haven Speedway -

Awesome Finds!