Racing History Minute - July 19, 1958

Ok, fans, think! What is the shortest Grand National (Cup)race you can think of? Our History Minute has covered one I think as a 50 miler on a quarter-mile track. Today, however, we are going to talk about 19 cars and drivers that showed up at a quarter-mile paved track in Buffalo, NY, on this date in 1958 for a 25 mile race. Yep, that's right. 100 laps/25 miles. The boys had just raced in Toronto Canada the day before so it wasn't a really big deal to stop by Buffalo on the way back South.

If you read TMC Chase's posting yesterday, you already know that the race the day before in Toronto was the first Grand National start for Richard Petty. He would start this race in Buffalo in 13th position in car number 42A. Just a piece of trivia you may want to store away in case you ever get that question on Jeopardy.

Rex White would start on the pole in car number 44. Second place starter was Johnny Mackison in a Mercury. Jim Reed would start third in a Ford, Cotton Owens fourth in a Pontiac and Lee Petty fifth in an Oldsmobile.

Two things were noted about this race as "historic" at the time. First, it was the shortest race, in distance, in NASCAR history to that point. I haven't researched the fact, but I am thinking there has never been a race shorter than that so the record is probably still intact. Secondly, Rex White won the pole with a speed of 38.593 mph which was (and I'm sure still is) the slowest pole speed in NASCAR history. Not much to write home about, but it put him on the pole. So Rex was the fastest with the slowest of the rest. The pole speed was determined by a stop watch in the hands of an "official". No electronic scoring back then. The odd bit of information is that the average speed for the 100 laps was 46.972 mph, more than 8 mph faster than the pole run.

Rex would lead the first 45 laps before Jim Reed would slide his Ford into first place, not to be passed in the remaining 55 laps.

A crowd of over 7,700 fans watched the 32 minute race and it is my supposition that with the top three cars finishing on the same lap, it was a close race. Only two of the nineteen cars failed to finished. Dick Walters fell out on lap four with ignition problems and Neil Haight fell out on lap 63 with overheating issues.

Top five finishers were:

1. Jim Reed, Reed Ford, winning $605.00 (not bad for 25 miles)

2. Cotton Owens, Stephens Pontiac, winning $450.00

3. Johnny Mackison, Ken Corman Mercury, winning $320.00

4. Shorty Rollins, Rollins Ford, winning $275.00

5. Rex White, Max Welborn Chevrolet, winning $250.00

Sixth through tenth were Lee Petty, Bob Duell, Tiny Benson, Billy Rafter,and Howard Phillippi. Richard Petty would finish 11th, 4 laps down. L. D. Austin was 12th, Ted Chamberlain15th and Peck Peckham 16th.

Wonder what the ticket prices were for that 30 minute event?

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

This race was held at Buffalo's Civic Stadium (War Memorial Stadium) which also held weekly midget and NASCAR races. The stadium was home to the Buffalo Bisons AAA Baseball team. Racing stopped in 1959 when the AFL Buffalo Bills football team moved in.

Buffalo traded NASCAR Stock Car racing for O.J. Simpson.

That's some killer trivia, Dave.

Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal

Excerpted from my July 18, 1958 blog post:

Though not a Petty win, the Buffalo race does include a Petty-related trivia nugget. Twice in NASCAR's history has the pole speed been slower than the average race speed. The first time was in 1955 at Airborne Speedway in Plattsburgh, NY when Lee Petty's race speed was about 4 MPH greater than his pole-winning speed. The second time was in the 1958 Buffalo race. Reed's 48 MPH average race speed was 10 MPH faster than Rex White's pole speed of 38 MPH - apparently the slowest pole speed for a NASCAR GN / Cup race. As he did the night before in Toronto, White raced a Chevrolet fielded by ... Lee's brother, Julian Petty.

As seemed to be the case a lot in those formative years of NASCAR, Buffalo was a one-and-done track for the Grand National series. Toronto the night before? Same deal. One race there & that was it.

A head-scratcher for me is why Richard raced 42A at Buffalo after racing #142 at Toronto the night before. Seems likely they'd just race the car as-is on both nights. But after Lee roughed up Richard at Toronto, perhaps Richard and his skeleton crew had to beat out the door panels. If so, they may have the opportunity to repaint the car number choosing the use 42A vs. 142. Dunno - pure speculation.

Some video footage of racing at Buffalo's Civic Stadium. I don't think any of it is from the 58 GN race, but you'll need an idea of the stands and the racing surface. Also, beginning about the 10 minute mark, the video includes some footage of modifieds racing at Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto - the same track the GN cars ran on July 18, 1958.

I believe the lead car on this video is Emory Mahan from Pa. but ran a lot all over New York in the early 50's and 60's. He was primarily in current model cars starting about 1956 so this video is prob. from early 50's. jmo.

How's this for some more killer trivia?

State of Nevada v. Orenthal James Simpson, et al

On October 3, 2008exactly 13 years to the day after he was acquitted of the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown, and Ronald GoldmanSimpson was found guilty of all ten Las Vegas robbery charges. On December 5, 2008, Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison.

Some race preview ads and the race report from the Buffalo Courier Express.

Wonder if than ranany other classes that day !

Preview article I found in the Buffalo Courier Express indicated a field of jalopy cars would race a couple of heats and a feature race.