Back in 1951, June 16th was a Saturday. In Columbia, South Carolina, it was a very cloudy Saturday, with dark thunderhead clouds which so often appear on those South Carolina summer afternoons. Nevertheless, some 7,750 folks would travel to a half-mile dirt track located just off Highway 321 in Cayce, South Carolina, for what would be the very first NASCAR Grand National (now Cup) race "under the lights". An unbelieveable 34 competitors would show up to race such cars as Plymouth, Ford, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Hudson, Henry J, and a Studebaker or two. Take note, there was not ONE Chevrolet entered in the race.
Frank Mundy would actually put his Perry Smith Studebaker on the pole, qualifying at just over 57.5 mph. Joe Eubanks in an Oldsmobile would start outside front row. Dick Rathmann would start third and Tim Flock fourth. An interesting note in my source reference is that Fonty Flock was the fastest qualifier in an Oldsmobile but started 12th. I have no additional information to explain this.
The clouds were so thick and low at race time there was no real indication of when the sun set but the lights around the speedway were turned on and racing started as scheduled. Having litterally grown up at Columbia Speedway, although too young to have attended this event, I can recall the lighting, while adequate to race and adequate for fans to see, was not exactly spectacular. In fact, when I began racing there myself in 1969, and was surprised at the "dark" areas of the track, but be that as it may, there was lighting enough for fans to be thrilled by 34 cars banging it around the track.
Columbia Speedway, as a dirt track, was somewhat unique in character. Usually by the time a race started, the track had been "smoothed out" or what we used to call "ironed out" to a smooth racing surface of South Carolina red clay. Usually by 20 or 30 laps into an event, the surface became akin to an asphalt track. You could actually hear the tires "squeal" in the turns above the roar of the engines at times. In later years, many drivers would use asphalt track tires in Columbia Speedway events.
On the green flag, Frank Mundy put that Studebaker out front and would stay there for the first 144 laps before Jim Paschal would move his Ford into position one. One lap 178, Mundy went back around Paschal to put the bullet-nosed Studebaker back out front. The lead would be his for the last 22 laps and he would win the event by a lap over second place finisher Bill Blair. This was Mundy's first Grand National win and the first Grand National win for Studebaker. It was an extremely popular win with the Columbia crowd as Perry Smith was well known in the area and well respected. Average speed for the 100 miles was 50.683 mph so although my source (Greg Fielden's "Forty Years of Stock Car Racing") does not indicate how many, if any, caution flags waved, it would seem that average speed would indicate few, if any, caution laps slowed the pace.
Top five finishers were:
1. Frank Mundy, Perry Smith Studebaker, winning $1,000.00
2. Bill Blair, Westmoreland Plymouth, winning $700.00
3. Marshall Teague, FABULOUS Hudson Hornet, winning $450.00
4. Herb Thomas, Thomas Plymouth, winning $350.00
5. Buck Baker, Baker Plymouth, winning $200.00
Jim Paschal finished sixth in his Julian Buesink Ford, Tim Flock, Bill Snowden, Weldon Adams and Jim Harris rounded out the top ten.
Fonty Flock finished 12th with brother Bob in 13th. Gober Sosebee was 15th and Lee Petty received $25.00 for 20th place. Red Byron finished 30th, Dick Rathmann 31st, Joe Eubanks 33rd, and Leland Colvin 34th.
Getting a little personal with this History Minute, please allow me to say that Columbia Speedway became such a part of my life beginning late in the 1952 season, that I was always there when the cars raced. I watched the exciting weekly races, all the time dreaming of becoming a race driver. I saw Richard Petty run his first race there in July 1958 and became an instant fan, more to compete with my Uncle Bobby and his favorite, Lee Petty, than any other reason. Well, I did meet Richard that night and thought he was really nice to the 11 year old kid who started a journey with the man who would become the King of Stock Car racing. I was there in 1959 when Richard won his first race ever, another convertible event and not included in his 200 wins. I finally got to realize by dream of driving a race car in August, 1969, when I started my first race in a 1959 Plymouth. My 1959 Plymouth was a two-door sedan rather than the convertible Richard Petty won in that night in 1959. But I was a "race driver".
I was at Columbia Speedway this past Friday night for a drive-in movie screening of the very first "Star Wars" movie. The track, now asphalt after it's paving for the 1971 season, is still there, though the asphalt be cracked and crumbled in places. The infield is now beautifully green, almost as a manicured golf course.The City of Cayce as designated the track as an "Event Facility". It was through the efforts of RacersReunion that the track was reclaimed from the wilderness it had become.
As the breeze rustled in the leaves of the trees surrounding the track, my mind was racing back over decades of spending my time there watching race cars perform spectacular racing. As the music began at the start of the movie, rumbling through the theater speakers, to me it suddenly became the rumbling of the hundreds of racing engines I had heard over the years. Hans Solo and Luke Skywalker became my hero race drivers of the past.
The movie ended and I was engaged in conversation with an entire family of folks who came out to the movie but all of whom are great race fans. We talked about the movie, we talked about racing, and we talked about families. As I walked to my van, parked on the start-finish line on the track, I was thinking how the script for the movie rolled up the screen at the beginning of the movie "A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away.....................". I turned to look around the dark track and instead of seeing Star Fighters blasting the Death Star, I was seeing racecar after racecar flying past me, silent now, but there nevertheless.
Honor the past, embrace the present, dream for the future.
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What a change! It's been awhile since I've checked in and I'm quite surprised. It may take me awhile to figure it our but first look it's really great.
updated by @tim-leeming: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
