Racing History Minute - June 6, 1965

Today's Racing History Minute concerns a rain shortened race in Birmingham, AL in 1965. Before we get to that "Minute", let us take a minute to recall a very special June 6th in History. It was on this day, 1944, that Allied Forces stormed the beaches at Normandy which would lead, almosta year later, to Victory in Europe for the Allied Forces. I have heard many first hand experiences from Veterans of that invasion and all the stories have a common theme: "I was just doing my job". Growing up, as I did, in a postwar world where Veterans were as thick as weeds in a neglected garden, I know the stories, but there is no way I could ever know the sacrifice and courage needed from each of the individuals engaged in that war, for the forces of freedom to prevail. Every year, I awake on June 6th thinking of what it must have been like.

If you have seen "Saving Private Ryan" you may have an inkling of what those hours on the beach were like. A movie, however, can never be as realistic as the actual event. I have been fortunate to hear Bud Moore, that kind gentleman from Spartanburg, tell about his first hand experience on this day 69 years ago. Just doing his job.

For our Racing Minute, we are going to a half-mile paved track in Birmingham, AL, where a 200 lap/100 mile race was scheduled. Race day dawned gray and deary, much like the weather in Columbia, SC this morning, but offficials were determined to go forward with the event. Of the sixteen entrants, only a few got to actually qualify as the intermitten rain kept coming. Finally, the pole was awarded to Ned Jarrett as the result of his qualifying run. G.C. Spencer started second, with Bob Derrington third and Junior Spencer fourth. Dick Hutcherson, who was to be the main nemis for Jarrett, started his factory Ford 12th after drawing that position from the proverbial hat as he did not get to qualify.

The first 33 laps of the race were run under caution to allow the track to further dry and become more "raceable". On lap 34, when the green flag was finally waved, Jarrett blasted into the lead followed closely by G.C. Spencer. Slowly, though, Jarrett began to stretch his lead on Spencer, who remained in second place until a very hard charging Hutcherson blew around him on lap 60 to move into take the position.

On lap 108, Jarrett, leading coming out of turn two, slowed drastically as a very heavy rain storm hit the track. Local sportswriter for motorsports and a well known author of more than one racing book, labeled the storm as a "junior typhoon". Having experienced some of those sudden deluges in the South personally, it is no wonder Jarrett slowed that quickly. When the number 11 Ford of Jarrett "swam" its way off turn four, the red flag was in the air although it was difficult to see in the wind-driven raindrops. After waiting an hour, NASCAR declared the race "official" as it was 8 laps past the halfway point of the scheduled distance.

Hometown favorite, Bobby Allison, drove a Ford to a seventh place finish in the event. He was one lap down in this event early in his Grand National (now Cup) career. We all know the great achievements to come for Bobby in racing.

Top five finishers were:

1. Ned Jarrett, Bondy Long Ford, winning $1,000.00

2. Dick Hutcherson, Holman-Moody Ford, winning $600.00

3. G.C. Spencer, Spencer Ford, winning $400.00

4. Tiger Tom Pistone, Ford, winning $300.00

5. Junior Spencer, Jerry Mullins Ford, winning $275.00

Sixth through tenth were Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Buddy Arrington, Raymond Carter, and Bob Derrington.

The remainder of the Sixteen car field finished (11th through 16th, as follows:

Henley Gray, Doug Cooper, J.T. Putney, Wendell Scott, Wayne Smith and Neil Castles. Only 12 cars finished the abbreviated race.

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

"gray and dreary" - also much like the weather across the English Channel 69 years ago...

Thanks for remembering D-Day, Tim. Below is a link to the National D-Day Memorial located in Bedford, Virginia, near Roanoke. On June 6, 1944, the Bedford community lost more sons per capita on the beaches of Normandy than any community in the United States.

http://www.dday.org/

William - you got my curiosity up. Racing Reference shows Buddy making his first GN/Cup start at Jacksonville, Florida in December 1963. That was the 3rd race of the 1964 schedule and the historic event won by Wendell Scott.

Just noticed that Buddy Arrington fielded two cars at Birmingham. Raymond Carter of Henry County, Virginia (home of Martinsville Speedway) finished one position behind Buddy in 9th palce also driving a 1964 Arrington Dodge.

The story below was carried by Scripps Howard News Service on June 4, 2001, just before the dedication of the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia:

6/4/01

By Lance Gay / Scripps Howard News Service

	Roy Stevens, 81, was one of the few members of the National Guard unit -- Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division -- to survive the D-Day landings and make it back to Bedford.

BEDFORD, Va. -- It was something so painful they only wanted to forget. In the first 15 minutes after the dawn broke June 6, 1944, this tiny Virginia hamlet, population 3,200, lost 19 of its 35 soldier sons on Normandy's Omaha Beach. Four more were dead within weeks -- giving Bedford the highest casualty rate for its population of any place in the United States during the D-Day invasion. The loss left painful, open wounds that some here say have never really closed.

Congress in 1996 recognized Bedford's tragedy by naming it as the site for the nation's memorial -- to be dedicated Wednesday -- to all of those who gave their lives on D-Day. President Bush will attend the commemoration.

Long before talk of a memorial, each day until she died, Martha Jane Stevens kept watch for her son, Ray, expecting that some day the U.S. Army might have found it had made a mistake about his death on the beach and Ray would walk down the path to home.

Ray's twin brother, Roy Stevens, now 81, was one of the few members of the National Guard unit -- Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division -- to survive the D-Day landings and make it back to Bedford. Roy Stevens' landing craft hit an underwater object and sank at sea, leaving him floundering in the water, struggling to shed his heavy gear as the friends he grew up with in Virginia's farmlands died on the beach several hundreds yards away.

Four days later, in a search for his brother, Roy came across a cemetery and the first grave he found had Ray's dog tags on it. Lucille Bogess, 72, whose brothers Raymond and Bedford Hoback were killed on Omaha Beach, said families were never the same after the news of the deaths came. "I heard my father say that it wasn't just their sons fathers lost that day, but their wives, too. I know my mother was devastated, her health deteriorated, then there were a series of strokes," she said. The number of deaths "was a tremendous loss, but we accepted it, and went on," she said.

	Wednesday's commemoration of the nation's memorial to all of those who gave their lives on D-Day will be attended by President Bush.

Accepted, but not discussed for many years. "We just wouldn't talk about it, not to a civilian, they would think I was bragging," Roy Stevens said. He said other survivors would meet occasionally at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars building to remember what they saw, talk of their losses and relieve the pressure.

Ray Nance, now 85, was the only officer left alive from Company A 10 minutes after the boats landed at Omaha Beach. "There wasn't anybody in front of me. There wasn't anybody left behind me. I was alone in France," he said. He was the first sent home to Bedford, where he became the town's mailman.

Stevens said he wanted to get on with his life and forget that he never shook his brother's hand the last time he saw him -- a memory he says he still bitterly regrets. Bobby Latimer was 11 years old that July. That's when the messages from the War Department came over the teletype at Green's Drug Store, the local Western Union office, notifying families of their losses that occurred the month before. "It was a real blow to Bedford," he recalled. "I want to tell you that made an impression."

But as time passed, the tragedy's impact lessened as the veterans and families kept their memories to themselves. Bogess said that by 1960, you could find people on Bedford's Main Street who had never heard the story about how the town's heart was torn out on Normandy's beaches on D-Day in 1944.

Almost three generations passed before the World War II generation realized their grandchildren didn't really know what that war meant to Bedford. Stevens and Nance are the only two living survivors of the Omaha Beach invasion. Both visit Bedford Middle School to tell seventh-graders what World War II was all about, and what it meant to Bedford. Bedford was once named Liberty in Revolutionary War times, and Stevens says he hopes coming generations will think of their liberties when they visit a memorial to D-Day, Bedford and Company A.

That's the message he tries to tell the new generation: "These men made it possible for you to be here today, and talk about being free, and they aren't here today so you are," he said. "This is something we should never forget, and kids ought to know this."

Nothing can really be done to keep rain from falling on a speedway. It happens. We've all been at a race where its been delayed, shortened, or postponed. But on this day, I'm guessing fans could not have been happy. They got to see incomplete qualifying, a seemingly arbitrary decision to set the starting line-up, barely half a race, and almost half the laps "raced" under the yellow.

A few hours to the northeast in Bristol TN, the straight line crowd raced without rain. King Richard scored a win in his class.