Nashville's 1969 Southern 300

The eleventh running of Nashville's Southern 300 at Fairground Speedways was on Sunday, September 28, 1969. The race concluded the track's season and was also the final race on the original half-mile surface.

Jim Donoho, son of track promoter Bill Donoho, worked in the family business from childhood and served in varied positions. Bill elevated Jim to track president in July 1968, and dear ol' dad further honored his son by attaching his name to the 1969 Southern 300.

Jim, still a University of Tennessee student at the time of his presidential promotion, ran point on the track's largest project since its original construction in 1958. After plenty of planning, the half-mile track was to be converted into a high-banked, 5/8-mile oval following the 1969 Southern 300.

David Sisco of Hohenwald, TN captured the track's 1969 late model sportsman title with three feature wins and consistently solid finishes. The perks of being the champ included sharing time with a couple of pretties as they promoted the season-ending event. (For the record, neither of the two women below won the Miss Southern 300 contest.)

A couple of years after his LMS title, Sisco embarked on a career as an independent NASCAR Winston Cup driver. He competed pretty much full time from 1973 through 1976. Sadly, however, he retired from racing in 1977 a few weeks after the death of his mother in a Talladega infield traffic accident.

Freddy Fryar - Nashville's 1964 track champion and 1967 Southern 300 winner - captured the pole during Friday's qualifying. Red Farmer qualified second as he prepared to defend his 1968 Southern 300 title. Farmer started on the Southern front row for the fourth consecutive year.

Charlie Binkley lined up third with P.B. Crowell timing fourth in his familiar orange-and-white #48 Chevelle. Qualifying set the remainder of the top 23 cars. The finishing order of a 30-lap consolation race determined the final ten starters similar to what had been done the previous two years.

The field included several regional drivers who'd eventually become well known at NASCAR's Late Model Sportsman, Busch Series, and Cup levels including Sisco, Darrell Waltrip, L.D. Ottinger, Gene Glover, and Benny Kerley. Waltrip needed an assist to make the show. He was not among the quickest qualifiers, but he did win the consolation race to start the 300 in 24th spot.

The drivers had some financial incentive to chase the lead in the 300. In addition to $3,000 payable to the race winner, the track paid a $5 per lap bonus to the leading driver.

Fryar roared to the lead at the drop of the green and established himself as the lap bully. He pocketed one fiver after another as he led the first half of the race.

Farmer had the car to beat in the 1966 and 1967 Southerns, but misfortune busted him both years. He finally put a full 300 laps together in 1968 and won the race. Hoping to go back-to-back in '69, it just wasn't meant to be. He made an early exit and was never a factor.

When Fryar pitted on lap 165, Binkley assumed the lead and began to assert himself as the big dawg of the race's second half. With Binkley in the lead, fans witnessed an awful wreck on lap 214 involving Ronnie Blasingim and popular Jimmy Griggs, winner of the 1958 and 1959 Southerns and Nashville's 1962 modified division championship.

Though some believed Griggs blew a tire as he headed for turn one, Griggs' crew believed he passed out in the car. Either way, Griggs spun and was center-punched by Blasingim.

Both drivers were rushed to the hospital. All things considered, Blasingim escaped with minimal damage though he did need surgery and treatment for eye, cheekbone and other head injuries. Griggs, on the other hand, was critically injured and struggled for several weeks during his recovery.

When racing resumed, Binkley retained his top spot. He continued pacing the field though he had to pit for fuel with 20 laps to go. Unfortunately for Binkley, however, his crew added only a smidgen to his tank. He ran dry a second time with victory in sight.

After losing a cylinder, Fryar struggled a bit with horsepower during the second half of the race. His gear shift also broke, and he had to coax his car to get-up-and-go on restarts while in high gear. He had conceded the win to Binkley - until Charley's crew didn't add enough gas to get him to the win.

With new life, Fryar swept across the finish time and captured his second Southern 300 win in three years. Binkley faded to a seventh place finish as his crew fumed and feuded in the pits over their fueling miscue.

Fryar's win in the final race on the half-mile track also created a bit of Nashville racing trivia. He also won the Nashville 100 on October 5, 1957 - the final race at the dirt, quarter-mile Nashville Speedways on Cowan Street. The predecessor to the Fairgrounds facility is more commonly remembered by its original name: the Legion Bowl.

After some touch-and-go days, Jimmy Griggs' health began improving steadily as the calendar moved into November. Though the accident ended his racing days, Griggs remained an important part of Nashville's racing past and present. When the Fairgrounds resumed LMS racing on its new 5/8-mile track in August 1970, Griggs served as the Grand Marshal for the Flameless 300.

Nashville racing historian Russ Thompson shared some video footage from the weekend including qualifying and/or practice by cars including Fryar (301), Sisco (15), and Alton Jones (50); driver introductions; the start of the race; the aftermath of the Griggs-Blasingim wreck; and Fryar's victory lane celebration.

Source for articles: The Tennessean

TMC

Nashville's 1958 and 1959 Southern 300

Nashville's Fairground Speedways opened July 19, 1958, with a slate of races on the inner, quarter-mile track.

Three weeks later, the Fairgrounds debuted its half-mile track in grand fashion with a 200-lap NASCAR sweepstakes race. Joe Weatherly won the race, a combination event for convertible division drivers and the Grand National hardtop sedans.

The new facility then settled into its groove with regular, weekly features on both tracks. The abbreviated first season concluded with a 200-lap modified race in mid-October. Though the event didn't have a formal name, it became known retroactively as the Southern 200 because of its link to the future.

The race was extended by 100 laps in 1959 and formally named the Southern 300. With the exception of only a couple of years, the modified - and later late model sportsman - race was the final one of each season.

The race's popularity and stature grew each passing year with fans and participants. It soon began to attract many regional and national racers and rewarded points for those drivers chasing NASCAR's national modified and sportsman titles.

Following the track's second reconfiguration in 1973, the race was extended by another 100 laps. The Southern 400 was held from 1973 through the final one in 1977.

Over the coming weeks, I plan to highlight each of the 20 editions of the race with old ads, articles, photos, trivia, etc.

Before taking the checkers, however, one must first take the green. So back to 1958 we go for the inaugural Southern 200, scheduled for Sunday afternoon, October 19, 1958.

The storyline going into the 1958 season-ending race mirrored the storyline of NASCAR's 2018 Cup season 60 years later: The Big Three. Although the track had a limited number of races with the mid-July opening, three drivers won all of the modified features heading into the final one of the year. Bob Reuther, Charlie Griffith, and Jimmy Griggs split all the hardware between themselves.

Source: Nashville Fairgrounds Racing History

Track management rolled out a high tech scoring system for the race. The system still involved manual intervention for scorers to push a button to record a time stamp as their assigned car crossed the scoring line, but the process was a more accurate way to track cars than other means. Other tracks used a similar system, but Nashville racers hadn't seen it before - at the Fairgrounds or other area tracks.

The race truly was a big event. The length was four times longer than any other half-mile feature during the first year of the track, and the winner was to take home a sizable, hefty trophy. Because of the extended distance, the race was to be flagged for a 15-minute break after 100 laps to allow for pit stops and driver maintenance.

The race also attracted a couple of out-of-towners who later raced in NASCAR's Grand National division. Chattanooga's Joe Lee Johnson made the trek to Nashville for the race. Two years later, he won the inaugural World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. G.C. Spencer from South Carolina (and with roots in Owensboro, KY and Johnson City, TN) returned to Nashville to race the new track. Spencer won a couple of features in 1957 at the old, dirt, one-mile, fairgrounds track.

Chattanooga's Charlie Griffith won the first race at the Fairgrounds on the quarter-mile track in July. He also captured the pole for the Southern 200. Bullet Bob Reuther qualified second with Griggs and Malcolm Brady laying down matching times for third and fourth.

Reuther got the jump on Griffith at the green and led the first dozen laps. Griggs then roared past Reuther and proceeded to dominate the rest of the first half of the race.

Following the stage break (where caution laps didn't count by the way), Chattanooga's Friday Hassler grabbed the lead from Griggs. Hassler was only able to hold the lead for a lap, however, and Griggs rallied back to the top spot yet again.

The Nashville promoters learned a valuable lesson as the race continued. They needed better calculations in balancing the race distance, anticipated average speed, and available daylight in the fall. Though the race was scheduled for 200 laps, the event had to be cut short by about 40 laps because of darkness. Lights were not added to the Fairgrounds until 1965, and drivers simply couldn't continue to race in the darkened conditions.

When the checkered flag was displayed after 163 laps, Griggs had a half-lap lead on Hassler with Reuther a lap down in third.

Controversy soon arose following the race. Friday Hassler protested Griggs' car. Hassler alleged Griggs' engine had a modified stroke and didn't have a starter - both rules violations. The second complaint was dismissed immediately, and inspectors didn't find issues with Griggs' engine. Hassler's protest was dismissed, and Griggs' win was upheld - over Friday's vociferous objections of course.

In some respects, the race was a promoter's dream - controversy, a protest, fans buzzing positively and negatively about the race and the darkness, etc. The only downside was track promoters Bennie Goodman, Mark Parrish, and Bill Donoho could not provide more racing to the fans right away. All had to wait until the spring of 1959 for the roar of the engines to return.

The second season-ender (and the first formally named Southern 300) was held Sunday, October 11, 1959. Track management learned from the year before and backed up the start of the 1959 race by an hour to 2:00 PM. Yet they arguably still pushed the enveloped by adding 100 laps to the race.

Earl Abts from Birmingham, AL won the pole by setting a track record. The previous record had been held by L.J. Hampton, and it lasted all of a just a few minutes! Griffith and Brady made up the second row.

Though Abts had success at other tracks - particularly in Alabama - his Nashville highlight was the 1959 Southern 300 pole. He returned to race several more times over the next couple of years, but he never won a feature at the Fairgrounds.

Fotki: Alabama Auto Racing Pioneers

Indirectly, Abts had a hand in the success of Bobby Allison's career. Earlier in 1959, Abts' car owner approached Allison after Abts won a race in Montgomery. Harry Mewbourne offered Allison some needed parts for next to nothing. Allison repaired his ailing engine and then won his first ever feature race.

From Miracle: Bobby Allison and the Saga of the Alabama Gang by Peter Golenbock

Similar to the 1958 200-lap race, the 1959 Southern 500 was divided into thirds. The field was slowed after the 100-lap and 200-lap marks for crews to service the cars and ensure the drivers were still OK.

Abts parlayed his pole start to an early lead. He was competitive for much of the first third of the race. His steering then went away; however, and he popped the wall on lap 102 to end his day. Griffith too was competitive but exited with transmission failure.

An unfortunate and somewhat frightening accident involved Jack Marlin (brother of Coo Coo), fourth-place starter Brady, and a couple of others caught up in the collateral damage. Marlin had issues and stalled out on the track. Brady's windshield was heavily coated with grime, and he could barely see through it with the glare of the fading sun. Brady was still in full throttle when he drilled Marlin.

Reuther showed the way for much of the race - particularly the final 100 laps. With 17 laps to go, however, Reuther had nothing more to give. Exhausted with blistered hands from manhandling his car, he simply could not keep his foot in it to make it the end. Griggs eased by Reuther, and led the remaining laps to win the race for the second consecutive year.

Source: Nashville Banner

Griggs won about 20 more races over the next decade ranging in length from a 30-lap modified feature to a 400-lap open competition event. But the driver who went back-to-back in the track's first two season-closers saw his racing career come to a close in the same event in 1969. That story, however, will have to wait for another post.

Source for articles: The Tennessean and Nashville Banner

TMC

1970 Flameless 300

Since 1958, Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway closed its seasons annually for twenty years with the running of the Southern 300 during the 1960s and Southern 400 in the 1970s. Beginning in 1966, the track scheduled the Flameless 300 as its April season opener (1967 - 1968 - 1969).

A month following the 1969 Southern 300, construction crews arrived to tear up the original half-mile track and replace it with a high-banked one. Long-time Nashville racing historian, Russ Thompson, blogged in 2011:

After the fire destroyed the original grandstands in September of 1965, the track went into a holding pattern. Management realized the track needed to be updated but wanted to wait until a decision was made to reconstruct a permanent grandstand. The “temporary” stands served the track for four seasons.

During 1969 the Fair Board approved construction of a new state-of-the-art grandstand. It would be covered like the original stands, but unique in that there would be no posts supporting the roof. A revolutionary design was implemented where a series of cables would support the roof from above. With the construction of the stands, the decision was made to build a new track as well. The track would have the steepest banks in the nation at 36 degrees. And the distance would be slightly longer than the half-mile at five-eighths of a mile.

The new track was supposed to be ready for racing by May 30, 1970 - about six weeks later than the traditional season opening. Instead, multiple delays pushed the completion date until well into the summer.

The track was finally ready - barely - by mid-July. Rather than launch the abbreviated season with the late model sportsman 300-lapper, NASCAR's Grand National teams arrived to christen the new track. The Nashville 420 was slotted for July 25th - about the same of the year as it had been throughout the 1960s. Bobby Isaac won the race, but the larger story was about tires. Speeds were significantly faster on the new, smooth, high-banked track, and the tires simply couldn't cope with them.

A newer tire compound was brought in for the 1970 edition of the Flameless 300 two weeks later on August 8th, the second event of the shortened season. It was expected to be a safer, more predictable tire for the late model racers.

Source: The Tennessean

The defending and two-time winner of the Flameless 300, Bob Burcham, did not return for the 1970 race. He had been expected to race and perhaps would have done so if the race was held on one of the previously expected dates.

Freddy Fryar, also a two-time Flameless 300 winner, returned for the 1970 race after missing it in 1969. Fryar's finish in his first outing on the new track, however, hardly resembled the solid finishes he'd experienced on the old half-mile.

Source: The Tennessean

A driver making his Nashville debut was  Jerry Sisco, brother of 1969 track champion and future Winston Cup driver, Dave Sisco.

Source: The Nashville Banner

Jerry Sisco endured a bit of irony in two different rookie seasons.

• He began his Nashville racing days in the 1970 Flameless 300. 
• Six years later as a Cup rookie in Darlington's Rebel 500, he pounded the wall and went up in flames. He was pulled to safety by Dale Inman and Barry Dodson from Petty Enterprises' crew. The race was Jerry's fourth (and perhaps understandably) final career Cup start.

Jimmy Griggs, a long-time Nashville racer, winner and fan favorite, was badly injured in the 1969 season-ending Southern 300. About two-thirds of the race through the race, Griggs and Ron Blasingim were involved in a first-turn, two-car savage wreck with Griggs getting the worst end of it. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and needed months to recover.

Source: Nashville Fairgrounds Racing History Facebook Group

The accident ended Griggs' racing career. But he returned just shy of a year later to be the Grand Marshal for the 1970 Flameless 300.

Source: The Tennessean

Chattanooga, TN drivers Fryar and Burcham had ruled the night in the four previous Flameless 300 races. The duo split the four races, and Burcham won two poles to boot. Another Chattanooga driver - Friday Hassler - added to the Scenic City narrative by winning the pole position for the 1970 race. 

A two-time winner of Nashville's Southern 300 in 1962-1963, Hassler had been a frequent NASCAR GN racer since 1967, and he was the only driver in the Flameless field to also race in Nashville's GN event a month earlier.

James Ham, a local racer since 1968, seemingly loved the high banks. He qualified an unexpected second. With the new configuration, Nashville's track record was destroyed by the top qualifiers by about 30 MPH.

An occasional racer at the Fairgrounds from Owensboro, Kentucky - Darrell Waltrip - qualified third, and Bill Morton lined up fourth. Waltrip committed to run the full season, such that it was, in Nashville for the first time in 1970 in an orange-and-white #48 Chevelle owned by long-time Nashville racer P.B. Crowell.

Though the tire issues experienced in the Grand National race seemed to have been resolved, new challenges faced the late models. The speeds of the new high-banked demon stressed the cars and drivers. 

Hassler led eight of the first nine laps before breaking a rocker arm in his engine. Ham interrupted Hassler's lead but for only one lap. After only six laps, he broke a wheel spindle and within moments was joined on the sidelines by Hassler. The top two qualifiers suddenly found themselves as the bottom two finishers.

With Hassler and Ham gone, Charlie Binkley in #125 took over and led the first third of the race. Fryar in #41 and Waltrip followed close behind as all three took the high line around the speedway - not even close to the line that drivers take on today's track configuration.

Continuing the theme of the night, however, Binkley's early domination ended with a parts failure. His distributor gave up the ghost, and he parked it as had fourteen other cars before him - all before the halfway mark of the race!

Fryar broke a crankshaft a couple of laps after Binkley's exit, and he would not become a three-time Flameless 300 winner. Fryar's night was not done just yet though. Nearing lap 200, former NASCAR GN driver and middle Tennessee transplant, Bunkie Blackburn hit pit road. He almost passed out from fumes in the car and needed oxygen when pulled from his car. Fryar immediately belted into Blackburn's #42 in relief.

Before Blackburn could be transported to a local hospital, however, Fryar's night was finally done. Not long after returning to the track, Fryar wrecked Blackburn's car while trying to pass a lapped car.

A full third of the race remained, but few cars remained to challenge for the win. With many of the top starters already parked, Waltrip put 'er on cruise control and piled up lap after lap out front. When the checkered flag fell, the late model rookie was five laps ahead of second place finisher L.D. Ottinger and 25 laps ahead of third place finisher, Ben Pierce. Only eight of 33 cars were still around to see the end of the Flameless.

The victory was Waltrip's first late model win at Nashville. He followed it with 50+ more of them. Waltrip's Nashville resume is also padded with:

• two late model sportsman track titles
• eight Winston Cup victories - including four in a row
• a Busch Series win
• a USAC stock car division win, and 
• an All American 400 win.

Waltrip also won eleven Cup races at Bristol. He has noted he developed his feel for Bristol by racing on Nashville's high banks in the early 1970s.

Source: The Tennessean

Finishing Order:

1. Darrell Waltrip
2. L. D. Ottinger
3. Ben Pierce
4. Ronnie Blasingim
5. Jerry Sisco
6. Bob Brown
7. James Veach
8. Harold Carden
9. Jim Woodall
10. Junior Caldwell
11. Gene Payne
12. Bunky Blackburn
13. Dorman Adams
14. Bill Morton
15. Jimmy Kyle
16. David Sisco
17. Freddy Fryar
18. Phil Woodall
19. Charley Binkley
20. Flookie Buford
21. Charlie Higdon
22. Bobby Hargrove
23. Chester Albright
24. Bobby Walker
25. Bob Hunley
26. Jim McDowell
27. Donnie Roberts
28. Jimmy Williams
29. Art Ellis
30. David Lowe
31. B. K. Luna
32. Friday Hassler
33. James Ham

TMC