Racing History Minute - July 5, 2013
Stock Car Racing History
No, no, the date in the headline for this "Minute" is not an error. When I went to my sources, including Greg Fielden's books, my Southern Motor Sports Journals collection, my Stock Car Racing Magazine collection, I could find NO race actually taking place on July 5th at any point in time. We can be assured, however, that racing was going on at some track somewhere on this date. I just don't have access to those records with my limited ability to find things on a computer. Fact is, I have started this Minute three times already this morning only to have it disappear when I tried to post it.
I thought that today I would brush us up on a little NASCAR history. Anyone with more than 10 years around the sport surely knows that on a December afternoon in 1947, thirty-five men gathered in The Streamline Hotel in Daytona. All accounts I've read always describe the scene as a "smoke-filled" room. Such a description of a meeting in today's times would certainly overlook that fact. How times change.
There are several well written accounts of this meeting and, depending upon which one you read, Big Bill France was either the hero who made the sport work, or the boogey man who stole the ideas and money of others to set himself up as Supreme Dictator in the sport. I prefer to think of Big Bill as the man needed at the time to bring the sport from what it was to what it could be. Check out "Driving With the Devil" either in written form or the now recorded ediction by Buz McKim to get some details of that meeting.
Big Bill was Chairman of the meeting in the Streamline after having begun the 1947 racing season as director of The National Championship Stock Car Circuit(NCSCC). He had also sanctioned some events through the Stock Car Auto Racing Society but with the acronym SCARS not necessarily good for the initial reaction of some folks, it was decided that would not work.
Red Vogt, a mechanical genius from Atlanta, is credited with coming up with NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing). On February 21, 1948, NASCAR was incorporated and Big Bill was elected President. The purpose, or mission statement was for NASCAR to unite all stock car racing under one set of rules.
NASCAR sought to sanction three classes in 1948. Strickly Stock was the top division with Modified Stocks Division and Roadster Divisions backing it up. First problem out of the box was for the Strickly Stock. No new cars had been manufactured from 1942 through 1946 due to WWII and France was hesitant to have new cars being banged up on race tracks when fans were clamoring for new vehicles coming off the assembly lines in Detroit. Manufacturers were working literally around the clock attempting to catch up with demand.
It was also not easy to stamp out the completion as France was competing against National Stock Car Racing Association and the United Stock Car Racing Association , all of which had National Champions. Frankly, what was happening was racing was getting limited coverage in the press as writers were tired of trying to determine who was the true national champion is a sport with so many acronyms. But Big Bill wouldn't back down. Never did, no matter the problem. Just think of the first race at Talladega twenty years down the road. Think of taking on the Jimmy Hoffa led Union when Charlotte Motor Speedway was being built. Love him, like him, or hate him, Big Bill France did things his way and won. Very few men, in my opinion, could have pulled off the things Big Bill did without either being taken on a one way ride (i.e. the aforemention Jimmy Hoffa), or being forced to resign in disgrace.
My personal first adventure into stock car racing was at The Historic Columbia Speedway in the summer of 1952. I remember certain things about that race but I have no idea if it was sanctioned by NASCAR or just a plain "outlaw" race. I do recall the sights, sounds, and smells of that night which have stayed with me all these 62 years. I also know that NASCAR has been such a huge part of my life that to try to separate my life from NASCAR would be a most difficult task. I may not always agree with what NASCAR does (seems even more likely that happens these days) but I always will put it head and shoulders above any other form of racing and, in fact, any other sport on the planet.
Tonight, the Nationwide Series will take to the track at Daytona. Twenty years from now, the next person to come along to write about history will have that event to use. I have tried, in all the History Minutes, to keep events prior to 1983 which gives, I hope, the younger fans coming into the sport a place to read about how we got started and what it took to build the sport. Give we older fans the chance to remember parts of our youth we treasure.
Honor the past, embrace the present, dream for the future
updated by @tim-leeming: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
