Last night, I stumbled on a link for archives of many issues of the South Boston Gazette-Virginian newspaper during the time of NASCAR Grand National and Grand Touring/Grand American races at South Boston Speedway between 1960-1970, as well as the glory days of Richmond's "4-H Boys" (Hendrick/Hutchins/Harris/Hairield) in their modified coupes. The paper has preview and event coverage by local writers as well as pictures by local photographers.
I've shared the link with member TMC-Chase since Richard Petty won 5 GN races at South Boston during this time period, including a sweep of the two 1963 races. Hopefully, he can find some additions for his blogs covering Richard Petty wins.
It's always interesting to see the coverage of what is now big time racing by local reporters at a small newspaper as contrasted with the Associated Press and UPI stuff that tends to be less controversial.
For instance, following Richard Petty's October 20, 1963 South Boston 400 win, the local writer questioned Junior Johnson's physical ability to handle 400 laps at the demanding South Boston oval:
You'd never see the AP writer today making such an assertion and incurring the wrath of NASCAR, the car sponsor and the driver. However, the NASCAR race reports later did show the "Reason Out" for the Johnson entry as "Fatigue" at lap 204 of 400.
The first of Richard Petty's 5 South Boston wins, on April 14, 1963 was covered in both words and photos.
Here's an example:
The actual race coverage was written by a local Halifax County, Va. fellow named Randy Paul Tingen, who did a credible job and I'll save that for TMC-Chase.
Glancing at a note in the Sports Editor's column in the same issue, I discovered that the writer of the race coverage was only 13 years old !
I was instantly reminded of our RR member, Cody Dinsmore who started giving race reports at an early age and of a current 13 year old RR member, Eric Cardona, who shows amazing mapping and investigative abilities to turn up the secrets of old ghost tracks.
Sometimes, folks like myself can become jaded, considering ourselves "expert" on stock car racing and its history.
The South Boston reporter would now be at least 64 years old, just a year or two younger than myself. Some searching showed that his father was a co-owner of the winning car of the first Sportsman race ever staged at the brand new South Boston Speedway in 1957.
Further searching reveals the young writer is now Sergeant-at-Arms for North Carolina Chapter 7 of "Rolling Thunder" - a highly respected group dedicated to American Prisoners of War and Missing in Action . I believe he was once involved with Limited Sportsman racing at South Boston and I now find comments on current Late Model Stock Car racing at South Boston by his own son.
I hope we are never too busy to give youngsters interested in Stock Car Racing the time they deserve and a listening ear and good advice. I think member Tim Leeming has set an excellent example in this regard.
Anyway, hats off to young folks like Eric Cardona and Cody Dinsmore today and Randy Paul Tingen 51 years ago for keeping it going. Good job, guys!
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/16/16 07:54:05AM
