Racing History Minute - July 11, 1963

Have you ever heard of "The Dog Track"? No, I'm not talking about the Greyhound (dogs not busses) track outside Daytona, I'm talking about the quarter- mile dirt track located in Moyock, NC, where the Grand National boys ran a few races over the years. This particular race for today, July 11, 1963,was a 200 lap/62.5 mile event in which fourteen cars were entered.

Junior Johnson, in that infamous number 3 Holly Farms Chevrolet, would start from the pole with Ned Jarrett starting second. Buck Baker started third, Richard Petty Fourth, and Herman Beam fifth. For those of you who may not remember Herman Beam, he was common referred to as "The Turtle". He would enter races, run far off the pace of the leaders, keeping his car clean and out of danger, to finish with minimal expense. He enjoyed what could be considered success by his standards as attrition in many races by the "hot shots" would move Herman up to respectable position.

Surprisiningly, Ned Jarrett used his outside front row starting position to storm into the lead on the green flag, beating Johnson back to the line to lead the first lap. Ned would lead until lap 178 when a flat tire forced him to the pits for a replacement. This is when the NASCAR scoring got a little confused. Jimmy Pardue had been running second to Jarrett, two full laps behind, when Jarrett limped into the pits with the flat tire. On a quarter mile track, under green,it didn't take long for Pardue to make up the two lap deficit. However, NASCAR scoring became confused and reset Jarrett in the lead and Jarrett was actually flagged the winner of the race. As the dust was settling, someone, somewhere, determined it was worth a re-check of the score cards. Approximately an hour later, Jarrett was told the win was Pardue's. Ned and Jimmy were the only two cars on the same lap with third place Buck Baker four laps in arrears and fourth place Mark Hurley nine laps down.

There was only one caution flag when Larry Manning crashed his Chevrolet on lap 214. Junior Johnson had to park his pole winning Chevrolet on lap 179 with over-heating issues. Average speed for the race was 45.464 mph.

Top five finishers were:

1. Jimmy Pardue, Pete Stewart Ford, winning $550.00

2. Ned Jarrett, Burton-Robinson Ford, winning $500.00

3. Buck Baker, Baker Pontiac, winning $365.00

4. Mark Hurley, Ford, winning $300.00

5. Neil Castles, Buck Baker Chrysler, winning $255.00

Remaining finishers, in order, were Elmo Langley, Herman Beam, Larry Manning, Curtis Crider, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty, J.D. McDuffie, Joe Weatherly and Wendell Scott.

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

Race report from Spartanburg Herald Journal

The race was also referenced in the July 14, 1963 Daytona paper AP story referencing Ned Jarrett going for the points lead:

Somewhere in my attic is a box with a reel-to-reel recording I made from the live Universal Racing Network radio broadcast of Ned Jarrett's November 7, 1965 win in the Tidewater 300 at Moyock Dog Track. By then the auto track had been paved and enlarged to 1/3-mile.

Wonderful photo.