Racing History Minute - July 4, 1956

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY AMERICA! To friends and members in other parts of the world, may you have a really awesome day as well.

No, we are NOT going to Daytona today for the 250 or the 400. Those records are readily available for anyone to view in many different places, both on line and otherwise. We are, however, going to a NASCAR sanctioned 250 milerace on one of the earliest (Darlington excluded) superspeedways in NASCAR. The one mile asphalt track was known as Raleigh Speedway, located in Raleigh, NC, of course.

A crowd of 13,600 folks celebrated their holiday at the track where 36 drivers would start the race with Lee Petty in his Dodge on the pole. Speedy Thompson would start second, Herb Thomas third, Paul Goldsmith fourth and Johnny Allen fifth. Interestingly, Herb Thomas started his own Chevrolet rather than a Carl Kiekhaefer Chrysler in which he had enjoyed success. The rumors were flying that Thomas was about to leave the Kiekhaefer stable, a move questioned by the railbirds "in the know".

When the green flag dropped, most fans expected the speedy Petty to storm into the lead but he dropped back quickly. On lap nine, Lee was out of the race with no oil pressure in his Dodge. He was credited with 36th and last place in the final run down. Frank Mundy would lead laps 1-13 in a Kiekhaefer Dodge and then relinquish that lead to Fireball Roberts, who had not won a Grand National race since Hillsborough in 1950. Fireball would lead until lap 65 when Buck Baker took over. Roberts was back in front on lap 88 and would stay there until lap 161 when Speedy Thompson got a turn out front. Roberts moved back out front on lap 175 and would lead the rest of the way for the win.

Immediately upon completion of the race, Cark Kiekhaefer, whose Speedy Thompson ride finished second, protested the Robert's car alleging the flywheel in the Robert's machine did not meet weight requirements of the rule book. Personally, I have no idea how anyone could make such an assumption not having actually seen the flywheel, but I guess Mr. Kiekhaefer was well versed in such matters. From all I have read about the man, he did not take losing very well. In any event, the track had no scales to weigh the flywheel but Kiekhaefer was insistant that he was right. Track management and a NASCAR official arranged to have the flywheel weighed at a local fish market on scales normally used to weigh the catch of the day. The fish scale showed the flywheel to be within the required limits so Fireball's win stood No report on whether or not Kiekhaefer thought there was anything "fishy" about the weigh-in..

There was only one caution flag to slow the race and the average speed for the 250 miles was 79.822 mph. Margin of victory over second place was two laps, ten seconds.

Top five finishers were:

1. Fireball Roberts, DePaolo Ford, winning $3,000.00

2. Speedy Thompson, Kiefhaefer Dodge, winning $2,000.00

3. Frank Mundy, Kiefhaefer Dodge, winning $1,275.00

4. Herb Thomas, Thomas Chevrolet, winning $925.00

5. Tim Flock, Mauri Rose Engineering Chevrolet, winning $750.00

Sixth through tenth were Paul Goldsmith, Marvin Panch, Bill Walker, Rex White and Jack Smith. Oh, and one side note on Rex White; his car number on that day was "X".

Buck Baker was 11th, Jim Paschal 12th, Emanuel Zervakis 13th with Johnny Allen 22nd, and Gywn Staley 23rd. Billy Myers finished 26th, Ralph Moody 28th and Dick Beatty 33rd.

Buck Baker, also driving for Kiekhaefer and finishing 11th, left the Raleigh event with a 296 point lead over Herb Thomas after 30 races of the 1956 season.

The Raleigh Speedway is a part of history now, as are the NASCAR races of the Fourth of July. As July 4, 1776, is an important day in American History, so, once, was the Fourth of July important to NASCAR racing. Now the Cup series runs on the Saturday "closest to the Fourth" and while that is a good alternative, I, for one, enjoyed the spectacle of the 400 from Daytona as a part of the celebration of the Birthday of America.

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

thanks tim for all you do and for all of these minutes that you post i really enjoy them all im glad you do this

Race report from The Dispatch of Lexington NC.

Couple of photos from the race.

2nd place finisher Speedy Thompson making a stop.

And Buck Baker making a stop in his Kiekaefer Chrysler. As was noted in the race report article, Baker struggled to finish the race in 11th.

How about a couple of other good 'uns.

A nice color version overlooking the field as final preparations were made for the start.

And 4th place finisher Herb Thomas in 92 leads 21st place finisher Arden Mounts in 18.

Sure, a few more won't hurt. Right?

GREEN GREEN GREEN! Lee Petty and Speedy Thompson lead the field to green.

Paul Goldsmith in Smokey's #3.

Buck Baker leads Billy Myers 14 and Goldsmith 3. I think that's Ralph Moody in 12 trailing the 3 of them.

In the first couple of years of NASCAR, number 22 was associated with Red Byron in Raymond Parks' Red-Vogt prepared cars. Fireball got his 1st GN win in 1950 in car #71. But his second GN win in this Raleigh race was his first win in car #22. The number then became most associated with him until his death in 1964.

And before the track was renamed Raleigh Speedway and became the host to three NASCAR GN races, it was known as Southland Speedway. In 1952, the track hosted an Indy car race won by Troy Ruttman.

More info in a [ 2011 blog post ] on the Raleigh News & Observer's site.

Raleigh's race track

Submitted by tleonard on 05/27/2011 - 14:39

This weekend marks the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500.

As it turns out, Raleigh saw its first and only Indy-style race on July 4, 1952 at the Southland Speedway, later named the Raleigh Speedway. The record crowd of 16,000 was there to see California's Troy Ruttman, who had won the Indianapolis 500 just two weeks before.

Many years later, Ruttman's youngest brother Joe (only seven years old on the day of the race) recalled the family's memories.

"I remember Troy and Dad talking about Raleigh and winning a race there, " he said. "They talked about the track being big and fast. At that time, except for the Speedway, Troy had primarily raced on quarter-mile and half-mile tracks, and he raced four, sometimes five nights a week, anywhere from San Diego to Bakersfield and Fresno, all short tracks.

"But that [Raleigh] trophy had a replica of the car on it. That's one of the things that I can remember, that they were impressed with the trophy that was presented to them. It must have been a standout, far nicer than anything they had won to that point."

[...]

"Watching Troy race, all of my ambitions were toward open-wheel stuff, " Ruttman said. "The Indy car guys called stock cars taxi cabs. They had doors, and it wasn't cool to race taxi cabs. If you were a real racer, you raced open-wheel stuff. And my desire was to emulate my brother. He was my hero." -- The News & Observer 7/26/1997

But NASCAR did take off, and the Raleigh Speedway was the first of its kind to have lights for night racing. Despite this promising start, Raleigh did not take the spotlight in motorsports. Former N&O writer Gerald Martin wrote about the glory days of the track and what went wrong.

The roads off the beaten asphalt path had been doused with oil to settle the dust, and even as race time approached, thousands were on the outside looking in, grasping Thermos jugs in one hand, the price of admission -- $6.50 -- in the other.

Troy Ruttman, the favorite, was nestled into his cramped, cream-and-red Agajanian Offy Special, the machine he had driven to victory in the Indianapolis 500 a few weeks earlier.

[...]

Car owner A.J. Agajanian marveled at the disciplined crowd of about 16,000. This new speedway would become known far and wide, he said. "I like the track so much, " he said, "I wish I could move it to California."

The track, a one-mile, high-banked asphalt oval named Southland Speedway, was about two miles north of downtown Raleigh, just northeast of what is now the juncture of Old Wake Forest Road and the Beltline.

But the best was not to come for the speedway after its inaugural event, its first and last Indy-car race. The track, renamed Raleigh Speedway in 1953 when it hosted its first NASCAR race, closed five years later, shortly after the legendary Fireball Roberts won on July 4, 1958.

Why? A city-county ban on Sunday racing. Public sentiment, grumbling by well-heeled neighbors who despised the noisy nuisance, politics and lack of vision buried a track that was ahead of its time. And although A.J. Agajanian couldn't move the track to California, NASCAR President William H.G. France moved the race -- to Florida.

[...]

The Raleigh track, built for $500,000, was not just another dirt bullring. The paved oval featured long straightaways, sweeping, high-banked turns and, in its last few years, a quarter-mile track in the infield for weekly racing. And Raleigh Speedway, not Charlotte Motor Speedway, was the first NASCAR superspeedway with lights for night racing.

Six races in the NASCAR Grand National series -- the forerunner of today's Winston Cup -- were at Raleigh Speedway. The first, on Memorial Day Monday in 1953, was an attempt by France to upstage -- at least in the South -- the Indianapolis 500. It didn't do that, but the race became a springboard for stock car racing in Eastern North Carolina.

NASCAR races in the early and mid-1950s also were held on half-mile dirt tracks at Wilson and at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh and on a one-mile dirt track at Hillsborough. But the big Raleigh track, restricted to non-Sunday holiday dates, never flourished. Attendance grew each year, but the crowds for stock car races -- the largest was about 15,000 -- never matched that at the Indy-car event in '52.

[...]

And now, barely a trace of the old track remains. The site is now part of an industrial park, and the only evidence of the one-time showplace are bits of concrete and a rusty girder protruding from the ground near the tunnel site.

An under-the-track tunnel, incidentally, now is in use at Talladega Superspeedway, and while the memory of the Raleigh Speedway fades, racing goes on and the dollars pour in at Daytona. -- The News & Observer 7/2/1994

Most every Friday night we raced at the 1/4 mile flat paved track.

Curtis Turner brought in his 180% crankshaft flat head most of the time.

Glen Wood ran his 312 cu Overhead Ford in a 39 Coupe for the first time.

Ralph Ligouri got 2nd with an overhead and I got 3rd with an overhead. The rest were flatheads.

The next week about 20 converted overheads showed up!

While the GN drivers were busy at Raleigh, Darlington was a hive of activity too. The track hosted its 4th overall and 3rd in a row AAA/USAC Indy "big car" race - the Pee Dee 200.

Here are links to several stories about that race:

Spartanburg Herald Journal

Wilmington Star News

Lexington NC Dispatch

Charleston News & Courier

Charles, I sincerely appreciate your support. I am having a ball with these History Minutes and I'm learning things I never knew. But the real thanks needs to go to Chase and Dave. Those two can find, an post, things that really make the series special. I plan to keep it up for a year so that will run us through April 4, 2014. Are you up for that??? I hope so. Thanks, Charles.

Wow, Chase, you worked overtime on this holiday! Great stuff. Love the write up and really love the pictures. What a historic record we are putting together here thanks to such additions as you make. Let's keep it going. I'm on board through April 4, 2014 unless something happens to end it. Thank you for what you do.

Jim, your memories add so much to this series. Thank you for jumping in and giving us the personal, up front reports. I love it.

man if this stuff gets any better i dont know if i could stand it i hope you guys keep this up for a long long time i really thank you tim chase and dave and any one else that contributes to this thanks gentlemen

Sittin here looking at the Sportsman Championship trophy from the 1953 season on the 1/4 mile track.

Randy, what an absolutely wonderful memory that trophy must bring to your mind. Is that the one you showed me when you were in Columbia a couple of years ago? Thanks for adding to this Minute. I love what we are building here and I hope others are going to find it enjoyable and helpful. Thank you for your contribution.

Wonderful stuff, fellas. Thanks to all.

No Tim. That was from Floyd Speedway. "Pops" Turner was the promoter of the event and mother always told me he had bought a "big" trophy because he was sure he was going to take home the hardware as well. The article I have from the race says he led a bunch but wasn't around for the finish and that trophy is on my wall as well. Glad I can contribute. I appreciate what you guys do.