Racing History Minute - September 19, 1957

Race number 46 for the Grand National cars in 1957 was run on the half-mile dirt track located in Cayce, SC, but known as "The Columbia Speedway". "Historic" had not yet been added to its title but even by that point, history had been made in many areas on that track. On this date in 1957, 19 cars would enter and qualify to race 200 laps/100 miles.

One thing about the surface of the track was that after practice the track was almost like asphalt and would wear tires pretty quickly. From personal experience I can tell you that tires would "squeal" through the turns in the late stage of the race as the rubber fought for traction on the slick, smooth, fast surface. Races there were always exciting and most often full of surprises.

Buck Baker would qualify his own Chevrolet on the pole for the event. Lee Petty, in an Oldsmobile would start second, Billy Myers in a Ford was third, Jack Smith in a Chevy fourth, and Bill Amick in a Ford started fifth.

Speedy Thompson, who had won The Southern 500 a couple weeks earlier, fell out of the race on lap 7 which continued his streak of awful finishes since the 500 win. There are very little details of the race in my reference source other than to say this was Buck Bakers 8th win of the season as he inched towards his second Grand National Championship. Twelve of the 19 starters finished with those falling out suffering mechanical maladies and not crashing out. Although there is no reference to the number of caution flags, the average race speed was 60.514 mph while Buck got the pole with a speed of 63.649 so I'm guessing no cautions. Buck would win the race by a little more than a lap.

Top five finishers:

1. Buck Baker, Chevrolet, winning $900.00

2. Gwyn Staley, Julian Petty Chevrolet, winning $575.00 (1 lap down)

3. Bill Amick, Amick Ford, winning $375.00 (2 laps down)

4. Billy Myers, Ford, winning $280.00 (4 laps down)

5. Brownie King, Jess Potter Chevrolet, winning $245.00 (6 laps down)

Sixth through tenth were Marvin Panch, Dick Beatty, Lee Petty, L.D.Austin and Clarence DeZailia. Remaining finishers were Roy Tyner, Bill Benson, Jack Smith, Jim Paschal, Fireball Roberts, Bobby Keck, Johnny Allen, Ken Rush and Speedy Thompson.

PERSONAL HISTORY MINUTE: Oddly, I have no specific recollection of this race although I'm pretty sure I was there. My uncle Bobby is in the hospital this morning so I'm not calling him to ask but it is unlikely I would miss a race at Columbia Speedway and I know very well he wouldn't. Only thing I can think of is that school would have started two weeks earlier and my parents didn't think I should be out that late, OR, as was my standard practice in elementary school, there were many nights when I was required to write "I must not talk in class" either 500 or 1,000 times depending upon the severity of my transgressions that day. Now the only time I face that issue is when I talk too much on the Tuesday night radio show and Jeff makes me write that 500 times. So, you see, history does repeat itself.

One other note on the personal history side. It was on this date, 1942, that my Mom and Dad slipped away to Chesterfield, South Carolina to get married before he left to go fight the Japs in the Pacific. In the three weeks he had left in the States before boarding that transport, they managed to move my Mom to Rochester, NY where she would spend the war years and where they had planned to raise a family. Thankfully, for me, they returned to South Carolina when I was five months old. So, although they are both gone now, a Happy 71st Anniversary to my awesome Mama and Daddy.

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

Thoughts to your Uncle Bobby in the hospital, Tim. Hope his health may improve.

Those are very special memories of your Mom and Dad. So many of us in our generation have similar stories.

My Dad enlisted in late 1942 at Fort Lee (Camp Lee back then) in Petersburg, Virginia and took basic training at Ft. Riley, Kansas - the horse cavalry outfit. Mom moved back home with her parents.

Dad went by troop train to Ft. Ord, California and shipped out from the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, first to New Caledonia and then on to Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. When they were awakened to board their troop transport in San Francisco, Dad's outfit discovered most of them had been robbed by the Marine guards assigned to their overnight barracks.

When Dad returned in 1946, he said there was a band playing "There's No Place Like Home" up above on the Golden Gate Bridge as the troop transport passed beneath. Not a dry eye on the ship.

I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for our left behind Moms to endure those years of wondering. My aunt (Dad's sister) devised a system to try to keep the family informed of his whereabouts. She gave Dad a map of the world with $$$ amounts assigned to every country and island. He would write home that he had won xxx$$$ in a poker game and the family knew he was on Guadalcanal.

Our parents lived in an amazing period of history transcending the use of the automobile, surviving the Great Depression and literally saving the world from tyranny. No wonder they were ready for some recreation in the 1950s.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"

Dave, thank you for thoughts on my Uncle Bobby. Just got back from a visit and he is going home probably tomorrow. Very, very weak but home is where he wants to be.

Thank you also for a beautifully written remembrance of your Dad and the war. That generation was/is, indeed, the Greatest Generation. Funny thing is that my Mom had never met any of my Daddy's family. She boarded the train in Columbia and went to Rochester and there she stayed with my father's brother's wife while her husband was also at war in the Pacific.

I never knew all my Daddy did in that war until I went with him to a reunion of his Division in 1985. Met his Colonel and the Colonel told me stories that embarrassed my Daddy. Turns out he was quite the hero, more than once, as a machine-gunner with the 77th Diviision, the Statute of Liberty Division. The stories were spine-chilling. After we got back home, my Daddy went up in the attica brought down his medals. No Congessional Medal of Honor, but WOW, I was blown away. Adding the stories the Colonel told me to the medals I saw, I was so impressed, But then, growing up with my Daddy had already impressed me.

Thanks for adding so much to these posts.

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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.

Pretty clever code there by your aunt, Dave!