June 28, 1958 - Lee Petty Horse Collars Hickory

Just to see if I can, I've tried my hand at headline writing for my blog posts. You may have noticed I've tried to include some alliteration, rhyming words, etc. I must have been tired because I just realized how silly it read to horse collar Hickory. But I'm leaving it as is.

June 28, 1958: Starting ninth, Lee Petty wins the Buddy Shuman 250, a 250-lap, 100-mile race at Hickory Speedway in Hickory, NC. Julian Petty, Lee's brother, fielded three cars for the race. In what must have been a genuine facepalm race, none of the three had quality finishes. Possum Jones, Bob Welborn, and Ken Rush finished 19th, 27th, and 29, respectively, in the 31-car field.

Read on for more - including a little anecdote I found about Curtis Turner:

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2013/06/june-28-1958-lee-petty-horse-collars.html

Chase, no matter how you "headline" your columns, they are well worth the read, Petty fan or not. Frankly, I like the "horsecollar" analogy! There will come a day, maybe 40 years from now, when all these racing historic moments you and Dave Fulton have recorded here, will be an invaluable resource to anyone wondering what happened to racing. You guys are tops!

Curtis Turner robbery must have been an 38-24-36 inside job!!

367. Fat, Drunk, and Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son
http://www.taurtoisemotorsports.com/seventies/Fat.html

Thanks for any information or photos posted
Dennis Garrett
Richmond,Va.USA

I'm trying to picture where you'd have put 10,000 fans at Hickory. Grueling schedule. Not bad on your resume to include back-to-back wins 72 hours apart both above and below the Mason-Dixon Line!

Just an historic note.... this race was named to honor the late driving star, Buddy Shuman, who made a big name for himself in both NASCAR and non-NASCAR events. As Tim Leeming mentions in his April 28, 1957 post, Buddy had been asked to head up Ford racing operations, but tragically died in a Hickory hotel fire from smoke asphyxiation on November 13, 1955.

1956 - Wilmington Star-News

NASCAR annually presents the Buddy Shuman Award each year to an individual or organization that has gone over and above to better the NASCAR experience.

One of my treasures is a CD copy of the 1951 78rpm record recorded in Richmond by Crazy Joe Maphis documenting a night of racing in 1951 at Richmond's Royall Speedway sanctioned by the Richmond Stock Car Racing Association. On his record, Crazy Joe Maphis refers to Buddy Shuman at Richmond as an "Ole Tar Heel." Many thanks to Richmond's Joe Kelly for providing me with the song.

When I originally compiled my blog post and referenced it at RR, I took Racing-Reference at face value and assumed the Hickory race was the Buddy Shuman 250. I've found references to the track having a memorial race named for Shuman in November 1956 and November 1957.

But in looking at this post again and finding a couple of ads, it looks like track dropped the reference to Shuman and reverted back to a generic Hickory 250.

If that's the case, I'm unsure of the reason for the change. Perhaps it was because the track felt there was no longer a need for a specific memorial race after NASCAR created the annual Buddy Shuman Award in late 1957.

On the other hand, the track DID return to hosting a Buddy Shuman memorial GN race in 1959.

Hickory bump