Twenty years to the day before King Richard won the [ Dixie 500 at Atlanta ] on August 1, 1971, a Georgian driver went well above the Mason-Dixon 500 to nab the win.
A 200-lap race was scheduled on the half-mile dirt oval at Altamont Fairgrounds in New York for Saturday night, July 28th. The race was to be held at the fairgrounds a couple of weeks before the annual Tri-County Fair scheduled for later in the month.
Ed Otto - who promoted many races for Bill France in the northern corridor of the US in the years to follow - recruited several known shoes for the race including the Flock brothers, Fireball, Lee Petty, Marshall Teague, and the 1950 GN champion Bill Rexford.
The race got some front page pub in the local paper - even if the write did include a few errors such as "Les Petty" and reference to Fonty Flock as the 1949 national champion rather than Red Byron. Fonty DID win the 1949 modified championship - but that was out of context with GN racers and Byron's title. Oh well...LET'S JUST RACE!
Race preview from July 27, 1951 Altamont Enterprise
Otto had PROMOTED these big names would race at Altamont. Whether they actually planned to or not may be up for debate. Scheduled for July 29th - the day after the Altamont race - was a 200-lap race at Asheville-Weaverville, NC.
As occasionally happens with racing, however, rains arrived to wash out the night's race. The big names raced on the 29th at A-W, and the Altamont race was rescheduled for Wednesday, August 1, the night following the [ GN teams' race at Monroe County Fairgrounds in Rochester NY ] - which coincidentally had also been rained out on its original date of July 27th.
Twenty cars started the Altamont race though I'm unsure of the starting order or even if qualifications were held. When the race ran on its rescheduled date, only a few GN regulars returned to participate in it including Fonty Flock, Lee Petty, and Herb Thomas.
Several drivers made their one and only career NASCAR GN start in the race - perhaps because of calls from Otto to help him fill the field for the fans:
- Victor Brenzelli
- Hully Bunn
- Jim Little
- Perry Smith
- Rod Therrian
Based on limited information I've found in a newspaper article and Greg Fielden's Forty Years of Stock Car Racing , Fonty led wire to wire. The GN regulars Thomas and Petty took the next two spots as would have been expected.
Interestingly, Fonty also won the race on the 29th at Asheville-Weaverville - the one held the day after the original date for Altamont.
Though the August 1, 1951 race was the first GN race at Altamont was its first, it wasn't its last. The division didn't return for a couple of years, but Otto apparently convinced France Sr. to return for a 2nd and last time in 1955.
Race report from August 3, 1951 Altamont Enterprise. Some of the errors included in the race preview article continued in the race report including
- a reference to the race winner as Monty Flock
- the formal name of NASCAR as National Association of Stock Car Drivers, and
- Lee Petty being from Randall, NC
But hey, as P.T. Barnum (allegedly) said, "there's no such thing as bad publicity". Despite the forgivable errors made with a typewriter, limited knowledge of the sport, sparse info provided by NASCAR, and an editor's deadline, I think the race got reasonable coverage.
| Fin | Driver | Car |
| 1 | Fonty Flock | '51 Oldsmobile |
| 2 | Herb Thomas | '51 Plymouth |
| 3 | Lee Petty | '51 Plymouth |
| 4 | Perry Smith | '51 Studebaker |
| 5 | Jerry Morese | '51 Ford |
| 6 | Pappy Hough | '51 Ford |
| 7 | Dick Moffitt | |
| 8 | Wimpy Ervin | |
| 9 | Jim Little | |
| 10 | Dick Linder | '50 Oldsmobile |
| 11 | Hully Bunn | |
| 12 | Ronnie Kohler | '50 Plymouth |
| 13 | Don Bailey | '51 Ford |
| 14 | Ed Benedict | '51 Hudson |
| 15 | Tommie Elliott | |
| 16 | Victor Brenzelli | |
| 17 | Rod Therrian | |
| 18 | Jim Reed | '51 Ford |
| 19 | Quinton Daniels | |
| 20 | Lloyd Moore | '51 Ford |
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Schaefer: It's not just for racing anymore.
updated by @tmc-chase: 08/01/18 09:32:08AM
