May, 1945, brought an end to the war in Europe. The little dictator with the Charlie Chaplin hair lip was dead and Germany had surrendered. It was VE Day celebrated in the U.S. but it was NOT the end of the war. The war raged on in the Pacific with Japan promising to do whatever it would take to win. Commanders in the Pacific estimated the cost in American lives would be into the hundreds of thousands when it became necessary to invade the Japanese mainland. It appeared that would be necessary as Japan was training women and children to fight to the death to defeat America.
Unknown at the time, was that our president, Harry Truman, was debating use of the latest weapon to bring Japan to submission. The U.S. had a secret weapon that would surely change the resolve of the Japanese people. Truman had warnings issued to Japan that destruction beyond anything ever seen by man would rain down on Japan if they failed to surrender. Still Japan refused. Between August 6th and August 8th, 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Fat Man and Little Boy" brought total devastation to those two cities. After the first drop, Japan still refused to surrender so the second one dropped. Japan then wanted a negotiated surrender, which Truman refused and finally, aboard the battleship USS Missouri, an end to the war was signed with the surrender of the Japanese. The only concession was that Truman allowed the Emperor to remain, if in title only.
This was VJ day. Celebrations were in order throughout our country and soon the troops would be returning home. My Daddy, who fought in the Pacific from the end of 1942 until the end of the war was finally discharged in December, 1945. The world was at peace after the most costly and deadly war ever. Things began to return to "normal" around the country and in the Southeastern U.S., war heroes returned to find opportunities never imagined before the war. In the Southeast, the Moonshiners were still around and still running their "souped up" cars, but things were somewhat different now.
In North Carolina, Bill Blair, Sr., Jimmy Lewallen, and others were returning to fast cars for competition on dirt tracks. In Georgia, Red Vogt and Raymond Parks returned to making cars faster and Raymond was hiring drivers to either run the "shine" or race on the weekends. Stock car racing was becoming THE sport of the South. There was one organization operating tracks in one area, another organization in a different area, and yet another tucked in somewhere between. Rules were different, promoters were becoming notorious for making a fast exit with the prize money while the race was underway. Wonder if Red Vogt built any other their engines?
There was a big guy, 6'5" tall with a booming voice that demanded attention who was attempting to be a race driver. Although he had moderate success on the track from time to time, he was not the driver to make a living doing it. He was, however, a strong leader when he set his mind to something and he was already mentally forming what he would expect to be a respectable and consistent sanctioning body for the sport of stock car racing. Big Bill France was leaving the steering wheel for the mahogany desk and leather chair. But let's drop back for a minute.
Big Bill lived in Daytona Beach, Florida. Exactly how he ended up there is up for discussion but nevertheless he settled there, began raising his family there and operated a gas station on Main Street. The gas station is still there now although used for pumping up memories of the historic days rather than 87 octane, 15% Ethanol gasoline.
The history of the beach with speed goes back, according to my sources (Thank you Greg Fielden) to February, 1903 when Alexander Winton reached a speed of 68.19 mph in what was billed as the "Speed Tournament". In March 1935, Sir Malcomb Campbell drove a 5 ton "Bluebird Special" down the beach at 276.82 mph (not a typo).
In March of 1936, the City of Daytona Beach actually promoted a 240 mile stock car race on the beach-highway course. Big Bill actually finished 5th in that event.The seed was planted for sure in the mind of Mr. France that racing stock cars on the beach-highway course had a future.
After the war, Big Bill was floating, or should I say flying, around the Southeast getting his fingers and toes wet in the promoting business. Big Bill knew about the connection of the moonshine to fast cars, and, in fact I am told by a very reliable source, that he rode with one of the shine runners more than once and would stop at intersections where he would exit the car and nail posters to the light poles promoting the next race. He was also aware that "liquor money" build more than one of the tracks scattered around the Southeast. Bill was able to convince some of the best drivers around to journey to Daytona Beach to race on what remains the longest track on which NASCAR has ever raced, at just over 4.1 miles. The early races there were exciting and produced some excellent competition.
As the1947 racing season was nearing its end, Bill France let it be known that there would be a meeting in December, in Daytona, to discuss the future direction of sanctioned stock car racing. Although all competitors were "invited" to attend the meeting in the Streamline Hotel, only 35 men gathered on December 14, 1947, a Sunday afternoon. After four days of cigarette smoke, sometimes almost too thick to see across the room, and where the liquor flowed like a river, and "fun women" hung around (I borrowed that line from The Andy Griffith Show). The organization now known as NASCAR was born and the progress of stock car racing in the U.S. received the boost it had been needing.
I am very aware there is much debate on how that meeting was handled and what Bill France did to cease control of the organization, but as I look back over the years of the sport, it took a man like Bill France, if not Bill France only, the build on what was set up on the top floor of that hotel in Daytona Beach. Through the early years, had it not been for the efforts and strict compliance to his rules by competitors, stock car racing would never had progressed past the small dirt tracks where the competitors raced for little money, if, in fact, any money. My personal opinion is that it took Big Bill France to make it work, but even so, sometimes his vision lacked what others had. But we'll get to that in a minute.
February 15, 1948, saw the very first NASCAR sanctioned race ran on a 2.2 mile section of the original 4.1 mile beach-road track. Red Byron took the lead with 16 laps remaining and won. That 1948 season saw 52 races with cars known as modifieds. These were Coupes made before the big war, with engines modified, sometimes to the point of just short of jet propulsion. The season ended after 52 races and it was Red Byron with 11 wins that claimed the first official NASCAR Championship.
Bill France was seeking support for a "roadster" circuit to further the appeal beyond the modifieds. A "roadster" is what my Uncle Bobby called a "stip down" and he had one. A coupe of some description, usually early to mid thirties, with no hood, front fenders and just the windshield as the rest of the windows were removed. The first few of these races drew little interest from the limited number of paying spectators showing up. Modifies proved to be much more popular.
Bill still wanted more. His mind began to consider a "Strictly Stock" divisioin which would consider of current late model, full bodied cars, with the stipulation that they be strictly stock. I think almost everyone reading this will know how loosely interpreted was the term "strickly stock". June, 1949, saw the first of these races which occurred at a half-mile dirt track in Charlotte, NC. The stories from the race have filled many a book and are continued at any gathering of any fans from those early days. The race, in spite of having the winner disqualified, went over with great success. Bill France had a new venue now to show to fans and he believed this was going to become his main division. If you need proof that this man was a visionary, that should do it for you.
So Bill France now had the organization, he had the drivers, and he had a division of racers that would draw the fans. He sincerely believed the fans were being drawn in because the cars on the track were exactly like the cars the fans had driven to the race. At least in theory. Bill decided that running the races on quarter-mile and half-mile dirt tracks, with the occasional Lakewood and Orange County longer dirt tracks thrown in were the future of the sport. He was content to remain on those venues.
Enter another visionary, one Harold Brasington. Harold was a local of a small town in South Carolina known as Darlington. He was into racing, having attended Indy once or twice and numerous short track races on NASCAR. Harold was convinced that a stock car could run 500 miles at race speed on an asphalt track longer than a mile. To say Harold literally build the Darlington Speedway with his own hands is speaking the truth. He drew the plans, allowing for saving on the minnow pond, the drove the earth movers and tractors, and he got a 1 and a 1/4 mile asphalt track build with banked turns. When he first approached France about sanctioning a 500 mile race there, France was incredulous. Not an exact quote, but Big Bill said something to the effect that Brasington was a few bricks short of a full load. Harold told him, ok, I'll find someone else to sanction it and I will run 500 miles on Labor Day.
When France saw Brasington was serious, he became more interested and joined Brasington in promoting the race. Probably still believing he would have egg on his face when no car could finish the 500 miles.
When it came time for the extended qualifying to begin, in excess of 80 cars showed up to attempt to make the field. When all qualifying was over, 75 cars and drivers were lined up, three abreast, to run 500 miles. Of the 75 starters, 21would finish, although many were multiple laps, and I do mean MULTIPLE laps down. But Johnny Mantz,driving a 1950 Plymouth, reinforcing the fable of the tortoise and the hare, came home the winner. NASCAR was truly on the sports radar now. A 500 mile stock car race and a winner with quite a story to tell.
I firmly believe that without the construction of Darlington Raceway and that first 500 mile race on September 4, 1950, NASCAR may have, by now, ceased to exist. It was 1959 before the next superspeedway, Daytona, opened, so Darlington was the only superspeedway show in NASCAR 10 years. Reading about the early races, or watching video of the early races, gives us a clear picture of what racing was all about. Darlington helped NASCAR produce legends and heros whose names are still spoken in reverence. So, between June, 1949, and September, 1950, NASCAR went from diapers to short pants. Although I'm sure neither Harold nor Bill knew where it would go from that September day in 1950, I'm sure both were dreamers enough to know the future was limited only by the chances they chose to take.
We have moved from the pine glens of North Carolina and Georgia into the bright sunlight of Daytona Beach, then on to Darlington. Racing was in its infancy stages, but the future of the "young'un" was looking bright. Drivers were no longer watching their rear view mirrors of the headlights of the revenuers, but were instead watching their rear views for the competitor trying to take away a position. What NASCAR was to become during the 50s and the 60s deserves the many books having been written about it. All the stories. All the guys still around who were there and who, if you're fortunate enough to be where they are, will be very willing to tell you how it really was. What it was really like.
I can tell you this. I've been around the sport since 1952. My first Darlington adventure was in 1957 when they scheduled the first convertible race there. I fell in love with stock car racing in 1952 and definitely fell in love with Darlington Raceway that day in 1957 when we took our spot up against the infield fence in the third turn. I can almost feel the ground shake beneath my feet right now as I vividly see the three abreast field passing in front of me on the parade laps.
I remember little of my first race for I was only five years old, only weeks from turning six. But that first race at Darlington will always be as fresh in my mind as though it was held this morning. I knew racing would be my life from that first dirt track event at Columbia Speedway, but I knew it would consume me after seeing the first race at Darlington.
I have been extremely fortunate in my life, thanks to my Uncle Bobby for starters, and then stumbling into radio coverage and now a part of his great site that works to preserve the history of the sport. This sport is about me, and I'm about this sport. Whatever was going on in the world back then was of little to no importance to me. What was important was the race just over and the next one to come. It was being able to hang around, and get in the way of, all the drivers who made up the best part of the sport.
Thanks for reading (if you got this far) and I'll soon be working on the next installment of the recorded and the recollected history of NASCAR racing. Like it or not, I tell it as I remember it and my memory, of course, is always subject to verification. For that I use Greg Fielden's wonderful works "Forty Years of Stock Car Racing" and his summary book "NASCAR, The Complete History". I also use the resources I'm fortunate to have with the legends and heroes of the sport who are still around and willing to talk with me when I call.
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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
