Racing History Minute - June 24, 1961

Our "Minute" for today takes us from the Hartsville, SC, track which we visited yesterday, up the road to Roanoke, VA, to the quarter-mile paved track known as Starkey Speedway. This race was the 31st race of the 1961 season, but even a bigger milestone as it was the 500th NASCAR Grand National race.

Twenty cars entered the event which would require running 150 laps or 37.5 miles around the short track. Rex White started on the pole with Junior Johnson outside. Jim Paschal started third, Richard Petty fourth and Ned Jarrett fifth.

When the race was over, it was Junior Johnson in Victory Lane, having won by just a little over one lap ahead of second place. It was Johnson's 22nd career victory and his third of the 1961 season. He ended the streak of thirteen different winners in as many races.

Of the twenty starters, only three failed to complete the distance. A blown tire ended the run of rookie Charles Williamson on lap 107. Williamson was driving a Curtis Crider second car which wasn't given much chance of victory although the rookie started the car in sixth. When the tire blew, he was out of the race because the crew had no more tires available. Harry Leake had problems with the rear axle and parked his Chevrolet on lap 113. Jimmy Pardue, the seventh place starter, dropped out on lap 27 when his radiator overheated and he lost all the coolant in the car.

Top five finishers were:

1. Junior Johnson, Holly Farms Pontiac, winning $900.00

2. Rex White, White-Clements Chevrolet, winning $725.00

3. Jim Paschal, Pontiac, winning $475.00

4. Richard Petty, Petty Engineering Plymouth, winning $295.00

5. Emanuel Zervakis, Monroe Shook Chevrolet, winning $250.00

Sixth through tenth were Doug Yates, G.C. Spencer, Wendell Scott, Buck Baker and Wes Morgan. Ned Jarrett finishes 11th, Herman Beam 13th, Larry Thomas 14th and Larry Thomas 15th.

Honor the past, embrace the present, dream for the future.

Race report from Spartanburg Herald Journal

On the same day Junior won at Starkey, Lee Petty gave the racing community an update on his recovery from his near-fatal wreck at Daytona in February and his opinion of the state of racing.

If you want to go a slightly different direction - yet stay within the theme of this post - you might check out the Texas Country / Southern Rock music of the Starkey Johnson Band . They even released an album titled Barnburner!

Thanks for today's history lesson from Virginia's Star City. Somehow it just doesn't seem right not to have had Curtis Turner in the field at a Roanoke race.

I'd say Pops focus was on other matters in June 1961.

Source: Daytona Beach Morning Journal