Racing History Minute - June 18, 1950

This one is for RR members Bill Blair and Eric Cardona. Eric asked about Vernon Fairgrounds Speedway about 10 months ago here:

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/forum/topics/vernon-fairgrounds

In NASCAR's second season of strictly stock / Grand National racing, Ed Otto may well have been the hardest working employee on Bill France's payroll. He was already promoting races all over the northeast, and he leveraged those relationships to help expand NASCAR's footprint in the area.

One such race promoted by Otto and sanctioned by NASCAR as a GN event was a 200-lap feature at Vernon Fairground's half-mile dirt track on June 18, 1950.

The race was held the day before the 1st anniversary of NASCAR's first Strictly Stock race on June 19, 1949 at Charlotte (see Tim Leeming's RHM ).

Fans who didn't or couldn't attend the race could still hear it. The race was broadcast over the airwaves on a station with simply natural call letters for racing: WRUN. I'm guessing this had to be a pretty novel concept for NASCAR races that early in its history.

Another seemingly novel concept about the race was to track lap leaders throughout the race - and communicate the info to the fans.

One of the more anticipated cars to be seen in the race was the Joe Merola's Tucker. Merola qualified the Tucker in the Poor Man's 500 at Canfield, OH a couple of weeks earlier on May 30th. But he broke an axle before the race began and never completed a lap. (A good read about the Tucker  was published by Hemmings back in 2012.)

Another story line for the race was Us vs. Them. Unlike the fabricated "home track" silliness of today, many Vernon regulars signed up for the GN race to test their skills vs. the NASCAR GN regular out-of-towners. One such driver was Chuck Mahoney who ended up making 16 career GN starts.

Home town regular Mahoney won the pole. The rest of the starting line-up seems to be undocumented. I find that omission ironic considering Otto's plan to have each lap leader during the race noted, documented and communicated.

Based on the race results, 23 drivers started the event. Joe Merola, however, was not among the 23. It's not clear if he and his Tucker didn't show or if he had some issue with the car causing him to miss the race.

Mahoney show Vernon's visitors the fast way around the track when the green dropped. He led the first 18 laps before surrendering the lead to Lloyd Moore. After a few laps out front, Bill Blair passed Moore on lap 25 and held serve the rest of the day.

Blair's pursuit of the win wasn't an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. Moore stayed in his shadows and the local, Mahoney, let it be known he was capable as well of pulling the upset.

As the end of the race drew near, Mahoney was running a solid third. He passed Moore to ease into second and had Blair in his sights. But on lap 180, he clipped a loose wheel on the track. The impact blew his right front tire and bent the axle. He had no choice but to find his crew for a tire change. But then he returned to the track to run the final 20 laps with his bent axle. Remarkably, Mahoney still salvaged a third place when the day was done.

Bill Blair was able to hold Moore at bay and led the remaining laps to capture the first of his three career GN wins. Ann Chester finished 22nd in the 23-car field. She was the 4th career woman to enter a NASCAR sanctioned event. The Vernon race was her first of two career GN starts.

NASCAR returned in October for a second GN race won by Dick Linder. However, NASCAR did not return to Vernon after 1950. As a matter of fact, the track quit hosting car races. The surface was turned into a horse racing facility. Later, car racing resumed nearby at the Utica-Rome Speedway.

Fin	Driver	Car
1	Bill Blair	'50 Mercury
2	Lloyd Moore	'50 Ford
3	Chuck Mahoney	'50 Mercury
4	Dick Burns	'50 Mercury
5	Lee Petty	'49 Plymouth
6	Bill Rexford	'49 Oldsmobile
7	Art Lamey	'49 Plymouth
8	Jimmy Florian	'50 Ford
9	Dick Linder	'50 Oldsmobile
10	Dick Clothier	'50 Plymouth
11	Pappy Hough	'50 Plymouth
12	Art Gill	'47 Ford
13	Ken Warmington	'49 Ford
14	Harry Sents	'47 Ford
15	Bill Bonner	'49 Dodge
16	Hugh Darragh	'49 Ford
17	Gene Austin	'50 Oldsmobile
18	Neil Cole	'49 Ford
19	Art Hammond	'47 Packard
20	Herb Thomas	'50 Plymouth
21	Glenn Dunaway	'49 Plymouth
22	Ann Chester	'47 Plymouth
23	Harland Holmes	'49 Ford

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Schaefer: It's not just for racing anymore.
updated by @tmc-chase: 06/18/17 10:06:23AM

11th place finisher, Pappy Hough, a noted midget and "big car" driver was already 46 years old at the time of the Vernon race.

The following month, he and son, Lee, became the first father and son to start a NASCAR GN race.

Below is "Pappy" Hough's writeup in the Eastern Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame:

Roscoe Pappy Hough

A talented driver, innovative mechanic and noted car owner who subscribed to the idea that more was often better, Roscoe Pappy Hough (November 22, 1903 June 17, 1996) made his living in automobile racing and his professionalism in all aspects of his illustrious career set a high standard for those in motorpsorts everywhere.

Although best remembered for his busy race shop in the Gasoline Alley section of Paterson, New Jersey, the Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Hough started driving Big Cars (Sprint Cars) in the 1920s in the Midwest and then switched to Midgets in the middle 1930s.

One of the finest pre-World War II Midget drivers, Hough also raced in Buenos Aries, Argentina, in the winter of 1938 and eventually moved to the East. The winner of 44 victories alone in 1941, he was able to make a pretty good living wherever he raced as his individual efforts and initiative allowed him to outperform his competition.

Hough who got his nickname from his take-charge leadership of 10 Eastern Midget racers who raced throughout the West one winter assembled a formidable squad of five top-flight Midgets in the 1940s that were numbered from 78-82 and known as the Five Little Pigs.

With Hough also driving, his team barnstormed throughout the East and into the Midwest often racing seven days a week and twice on Sunday. To keep everything moving along in an orderly fashion, Houghs machines all traveled on one double-deck trailer but he would sometimes send a couple of his cars and drivers to different tracks so that they did not compete against themselves. And occasionally he sent his cars and drivers by air freight to distant tracks.

As a team owner, Hough employed 40 of the top Midget drivers such as fellow EMPA Hall of Famers Bill Schindler, Fred Jiggs Peters and Nick Fonoro Sr. and whether racing outdoors or indoors his rides were always considered as some of the best in the business.

He was also a rather skilled craftsman who built dozens of cars over a 30-year period that included the first tube-chassis Midgets in the East. He also created one of the first quick-change rear ends known as Hough rears that were in great demand and his Ford V-8-powered Midgets stood up well against the Offy-powered cars.

When Midget racing began to fall off in popularity, Hough took a brief fling into Stock Car racing with his two-toned No. 81 1937 Ford coupe and as he did as a Midget racer he was more than capable of finding the checkered flag. He also raced in NASCARs Grand National (Cup Series) with his 1950-1952 Fords and when NASCAR began what it called its Short Track Division basically a Sportsman series he became its first-ever champion in 1951.

On July 2, 1950, Hough and his son Lee set a record at the 100-mile NASCAR Grand National race at the half-mile dirt Monroe County Fairgrounds in Rochester, New York, with their 18th- and 25th-place finishes, respectively, behind winner Curtis Turner as they became the first father-and-son duo to compete together in a NASCAR race.

In all, Pappy made 21 starts in NASCARs Grand National Division (1950-1952 & 1955) with his best finish a fifth in his No. 81 Ford behind winner and fellow EMPA Hall of Fame member Lee Petty in a 200-lap race at Rochester on July 31, 1951.

Roscoe Pappy Hough reportedly raced at some 560 tracks and is said to have won over 1,000 races as a driver and car owner, and after he retired from racing he continued to work on racing cars for the rest of his life in his Wayne, New Jersey, garage. One of racings true characters and the first president of the Atlantic Coast Old Timers Racing Club who served in that capacity from 1983 until his death he claimed that he continued to keep spy and active due to the fact that he gave his joints a rubdown with WD-40 each night before he went to sleep.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"