Rockingham Rookies

Found this piece of interesting trivia for sale on ebay this morning. A NASCAR newsletter from October 1965. The front page article says every car would sport a yellow rookie stripe at Rockingham because no one had driven the track before.

Other than the ceremony of doing it & commemorating The Rock's 1st race, it seems silly to think of every car with a yellow stripe. I'm curious if anyone recalls this same thing being done at Charlotte and Atlanta in 1960, Bristol in 61, Pocono in 74 (except for those who had run USAC races there), etc.

Somewhere along the way, the practice was obviously discontinued. Every car did NOT have a stripe at Loudon, Vegas, Texas, Chicago, KC, Cali, etc. - nor did they at Richmond when it was converted to the 3/4 current layout.

I'm guessing the yellow bumpers were a pretty good publicity gimmick to draw interest in the first American 500.

Enjoyed seeing the photo of Spartanburg's Joe Littlejohn at the bottom of the page. He was much farther along in age when I met him in 1981. Joe was an extremely gracious gentleman. He would anonymously pay for your breakfast if he spotted you in a motel restaurant.

Joe put Ricky Rudd and me up in his Spartanburg Pine Street Motel in Fall 1983 when we were in "secret negotiations" to put Ricky in the #15 Bud Moore ride for 1984 sponsored by Wrangler. Funny how the late Joe Whitlock's buddy Tom Higgins printed that in The Charlotte Observer the morning of our "secret" meeting, leading to a call to Bud's shop that morning from car owner Butch Mock screaming that we were stealing his 1984 Rahmoc driver and screwing up his sponsorship. Racing Silly Season (the term was used long before anyone ever heard of a Jayski) was every bit as dirty and underhanded as politics.

Not only was Joe Littlejohn a great driver, promoter and car owner, he also hosted the inaugural meeting in Spartanburg of the Southern Motorsports Press Association, forerunner of today's National Motorsports Press Association. Joe is another racing pioneer worthy of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, along with his Spartanburg neighbors, David Pearson, Bud Moore and Cotton Owens.

Everywhere Joe went, he was driven and escorted by a South Carolina State Trooper.

I'm sure smoke was boiling out of Butch Mock's ears for last couple of months of 1983 and winter of 1984. The loss of Rudd and Wrangler wasn't his only one. He, Bob Rahilly, and King Richard announced a deal in November 1984 to provide cars and engines to Curb Motorsports. But then in early 1984, Petty announced the deal was off.

Chase, just to set the record straight, Wrangler never had any dealings with Rahmoc. But Butch claimed that Ricky Rudd had committed to he and Bob and they had presented that pairing to a sponsor and that we knew it. That was news to us. I was in the BME office when Bud got the call from Butch, resulting in a severe case of tongue chewing by Bud, who was very unflappable.

There was always a lot of drama around Rahmoc. At the February 1981 (or '82?) Richmond race there was a big snowstorm Thursday and Friday and all the cars were staged in a fairgrounds exhibit building. NASCAR conducted inspection in that building.

Gary Balough was the Rahmoc driver and the place suddenly filled up on Friday morning with guys in dark suits wearing little earpieces. The Rahmoc / Balough car was pulled out for a "special inspection" along with their transporter. I'm not going to speculate on who was wearing the suits or what they were searching for, but NASCAR and Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway personnel were very accommodating. During all these weird goings on, some unknown individual opened a package of Goody's Headache Powders and sprinkled it ion the front fender of the Balough / Rahmoc car.

I can tell you I was seated later in the NASCAR suite at Talladega when Balough took the lead in an ARCA race. Bill France, Jr. - seated directly behind me - keyed his radio and commanded, "Throw the GD yellow."

The late Associated Press Motorsports Editor, Bloys Britt wrote this 1965 article about the other Rockingham rookies - the track owners!

TO ROCKINGHAM SPEEDWAY

Big-Time Racing On Its' Way

By BLOYS BRITT

Thursday September 2, 1965

Associated Press Writer

ROCKINGHAM, N. C. (AP)~ A group of well-heeled rookies, all but one of them without previous experience in the sport, are going to bring big-time Stock car racing to this hub of the state's peach-growing industry. The group, headed by Elsie Webb, jocular former highway commissioner and one of the Sandhills area's largest businessmen, is building a new $1 million-plus speedway on a sandy tract where peach trees used to flourish. As a rule, rookies usually have to prove themselves before being accepted into the racing fraternity, but not this group. Their first race, a 500-miler, will be run October 31st. It could prove to be the best one on the NASCAR circuit this year.

Webb, a 320-pcund lawyer who played football at Wake Forest, is chairman of the board and perhaps the most enthusiastic and hardest-working recruit stock car racing has taken in since its inception in the early 1930s. "We're going strictly first class in our new operation," says Webb. "We're trying to take into account the mistakes of other stock car track builders and take advantage of them." The new speedway, financed in large part by Webb and six other business and professional men in the area, has been named North Carolina Motor Speedway, The one mile highly-banked and paved layout occupies a tract of about 260 acres 10 miles north of both Rockingham and Hamlet. It will be in the heart of what is known as North Carolina's winter vacationland, with Pinehurst and Southern Pines only minutes away, There are 11 men in the group, including Harold Brasington who built Darlington International Raceway in 1949 and had a hand in at least one other of the South's super speedways. He started the Rockingham operation several years ago. Brasington is president of the new speedway. But aside from Brasington, it is doubtful if most of the owners have ever seen a big-time stock car race. I went to one at Darlington several years ago," says Webb. "But we left before it was over to avoid the traffic." Now Webb hopes that U.S. 1 and U.S. 177, both of which serve his new track, wilt present equal traffic problems because of the huge crowds. Brasington is the man with the track knowledge, although Webb picked up considerable engineering knowledge during his term as highway commissioner. Webb and the others furnish the financial genius.

One look at the new plant gives the impression that money hasn't been a problem, at least thus far. The track is being built for speed. It is banked its entire mile from a peak of 28 degrees in the second turn to eight degrees down the straights. Features have been lifted from Daytona and Charlotte tracks, both much longer, so that Rockingham will be mostly straights rather than mostly turns. The home stretch is 1,658 feet long and the back 1,152 feet for a total of 2,850 feet of straight aways. The first and second turns measure 1,2(10 feet, the third and fourth turns 1,230 feet. "We believe we have two things to sell the fans here," says Brasington. "One is the easy viewing of the action that one associates with the half mile tracks. The other is the 100 mile per hour-plus speeds we will have here." Brasington noted that every inch of the mile track will be visible to the fan, regardless of where he sits among the 30,000 permanent concrete seats. Buildings in the infield have been limited to 10 feet, six inches in height to assure visibility. As stock car tracks go, there will be sheer luxury at this new one. The rest rooms will have running water and attendants on duty during race hours to keep them clean. The press box will be glass enclosed, air-conditioned and will seat up to 100 working reporters. The new speedway will be the only one of more than half a mile in length on which Chrysler Corp.'s racing cars ~ the hemi-powered Plymouth Belvedere and Dodge Coronet can run this year. Richard Petty, the Plymouth ace who hasn't run on a track of more than half a mile in length this year, visited Rockingham several days ago and predicted the new track would produce laps of 135 m.p.h. That would equal, most of the 1 1/2 mile racing ovals.

Webb is considered the "daddy rabbit" of the operating team. He is known primarily as a lawyer, but his business interests in the area are extensive and he owns a huge farm near his home at Ellerbe. Dr. George Galloway, 32, is vice president He is a physician, a general practicioner but "not a country doctor." He had had the racing itch for several years and before his practice got out of hand he competed in drag racing events. He lives in Hamlet. Larry Hogan, 33 of Ellerbe, is a manufacturing executive end comes from a wealthy family. He and Webb vie for sizeHogan weighs about 300. L.G. Dewitt of Ellerbe admits he is the greenest in the crowd, is one of the south's largest fruit (peaches and apples) growers and is a major stock holder in two national truck lines. R. N. Lewis of West End heads a firm which manufactures tables and doors. R. W. Goodman is the politically-potent sheriff of Richmond County, and a prosperous merchant on the side. Hugh Lee of Rockingham is Webb's law partner. Others in the operating group include Braslagton, J. M. Long of Rockingham; a contractor whose firm did the grading work for the track; Hubert Latham, a Marston farmer; and Bernie Locklear of Pembroke, a metal dealer and close friend of Brasington.

Webb admits his interest in racing is of recent vintage, but he adds, "This is the most facinating thing I've ever done. Fascinating but awfully expensive,

Note - the turn bankings listed in this September 1965 story are steeper than what was originally built and Richard Petty's speed estimates of 135 mph laps based on that information were way too high. The pole speed for the October 1965 American 500 was 116.26 mph and the Spring 1966 Peach Blossom 500 that I attended had a pole speed of 116.684 mph. It took about 5 hours to run those first races and the track was later rebanked to a higher degree.

Doesn't surprise me....politics has been with Nascar since December of 1947!

"We're going strictly first class in our new operation," says Webb. "We're trying to take into account the mistakes of other stock car track builders and take advantage of them."

...and...

One look at the new plant gives the impression that money hasn't been a problem, at least thus far.

ZING to Charlotte Motor Speedway and Curtis Turner / Bruton Smith?

I suspect that's exactly where the zing was directed. How ironic was it that Curtis won that first race?

Chase, here's a link to a 1983 newspaper article that covers much of what we were discussing here. It was written the same day Ricky signed with Bud. My memory was fuzzy, but the article is dead on in relating how we almost had Dale Earnhardt and Tim Richmond in Wrangler sponsored cars at the same time:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-FcsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Q84EAAAA...

Click Link above for archived story

Dave, Don't know if there was any relation to the J.M. Long in the article but there was a "Knock" Long that was a partner in the old Rockingham Speedway dirt track that is in the photo above.

Interesting, Dennis.

that rahmoc outfit now there was a crew - this is awesome dave - i cannot stop laughing - this is priceless - thanks dave .