October 29,1950 - Lee Petty Hauls In Hillsboro

October 29, 1950: In the final race of NASCAR's second season for its Strictly Stock / Grand National division, Lee Petty has a consistent day, leads the final 43 laps, and wins a scheduled 200-lap race on the one-mile, dirt Occoneechee Speedway in Hillsboro, North Carolina.

As mentioned below, darkness caused the race to be shortened by 25 laps. Fonty Flock won the pole and dominated much of the race by leading 124 of the 175 laps. But a broken engine mount ended his day, and he finished a disappointing 20th. Lee qualified 15th in the 29-car field, but he was patient enough to know when to go to nab the win.

Perry Allen Wood recaps the story of the race in Silent Speedways of the Carolinas:

The second Hillsborough visit of 1950 occurred on the cool autumn afternoon of October 29th. It was the 19th and last race of the season and packed with drama. Bill Rexford had a slippery grip on the first Grand National points title because if he faltered and Fireball Roberts recorded a strong finish, the young Floridian would steal the championship. Time trials saw Fonty Flock sizzle with a speed of nearly 96 miles per hour for the pole. Fireball took second and Rexford was a dismal 29th, dead last! Needless to say, things looked good for Roberts.

[Curtis] Turner and [Jim] Paschal fell out right away with point leader Rexford joining them, saddling him with 26th. Bill Rexford had done everything in his power to gift-wrap the title for Roberts.

Fireball...refused to stroke his way to the title unlike the "big picture" racers in the modern era. Roberts put his Olds 11 out front on the 72nd circuit for six laps until Fonty in Bob Flock's Olds took it back. Then Roberts led, then Flock, then on lap 125, full aware of the stakes, Fireball blew the engine in Sam Rice's Rocket and the race and title were gone.

With no lights and the sun setting behind the hills, the chilly day ended 25 laps early with Plymouth-pushing Lee Petty claiming his second career win, the first in over a year. Second was Buck Baker still looking for those first checkers, still over a year away. Third was Weldon Adams, fourth Tim Flock in the Plymouth that won the first Southern 500, and fifth came Bill Blair in Olds number 41.5. Bill Rexford became the youngest Grand National Champion at 23, a distinction he still holds as of this writing. Fireball Roberts was never nearly this close to a title again...and neither was Rexford. ~ p. 103

Throughout Lee Petty's career, he came out on the victorious end of many controversies. In 1950, however, he was on the losing end of one. Rexford claimed the championship over Fireball, and he remains the youngest NASCAR GN/Cup champion ever - a few months younger than Jeff Gordon. Rexford needed a bad finish from Roberts at Occoneechee in the last race of the season to claim the championship. But he also benefited from Lee Petty having his points stripped during the summer by Bill France, Sr. for running non-NASCAR events.

Greg Fielden writes in Forty Years of Stock Car Racing - Vol. 1:

Lee Petty was another driver bitten by NASCAR's iron hand. During a three-week lull in the Grand National tour in July, Petty wandered outside the NASCAR sanctioned boundaries and paid dearly for it. Through eight races the Randleman, NC Plymouth driver had accumulated 809 points, which was good enough for third place in the standings. He was only 24.5 points out of first place in the wide-open scramble for the lead. After NASCAR took all his points away, he had to start at zero in late July. ~ pp. 24-25

Had France not assessed Petty the large points penalty, Lee likely would have been the 1950 champion rather than Rexford. He rallied from zero points in late July to finish third in the standings behind Rexford and Roberts by season's end.

Interestingly, the defending series champion - Red Byron - finished 1950 with zero Grand National points. Despite France's edict to run only NASCAR events, Byron raced as he saw fit. And true to Big Bill's adage of "you need us worse than we need you", he penalized Byron not just once but twice during the season. And by the way, Byron just happened to be the one who came up with the sanctioning body's name and acronym: NASCAR - National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.)

Source: Youngstown Vindicator via Google News Archive

TMC

July 10 - Uncle Dave and Winning Red

July 10th and its the birthday of ... Schaefer Hall of Famer Uncle Dave!

July 10th is also the anniversary of the second ever NASCAR Strictly Stock race in 1949. (A year later, the series was renamed the NASCAR Grand National series.) The race was the first "premier series" event sanctioned by the newly-founded National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing on Daytona Beach's famed beach and road course.

Gober Sosebee from the moonshining epicenter of Dawson County, Georgia won the pole for the 28-car field. He dominated the race by leading 34 of the 40 laps on the 4+ mile course along the Atlantic Ocean and State Highway A1A.

In golf, the old saying is drive for show but putt for dough. In racing, a similar adage is it only matters who leads the last lap not the first. Although Sosebee led the majority of laps, he lost a tire and couldn't close the sale. Red Byron took the lead with six to go and led the rest of the way.

Credit: Sorrentolens Blog

Like Uncle Dave, Byron was an army vet. Unlike Uncle Dave, Byron is credited for suggesting the NASCAR name and was its first Strictly Stock champion. Last fall, Ryan McGee wrote a terrific piece about Red Byron for ESPN.com that covered his military service, involvement with the formation of NASCAR and his racing career.

Source: ESPN.com

As a Petty fan, I found it interesting Lee Petty didn't enter the event. Lee raced (and wrecked) a borrowed Buick in the series' inaugural race at Charlotte about a month earlier. And he raced his own #42 Plymouth in the series third race in Hillsboro, NC about a month later. But for whatever reason (probably financial), Lee and his fledgling team stayed in Level Cross rather than make the trip to the beach.

From the time this blog was started about 4 years ago, I've included a sidebar link to a recommended book, Driving With The Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR, by Neal Thompson. The book covers the convergence of southern moonshining and the invention of the automobile. Eventually, the two found their way to countless racing bullrings around the country. Thompson writes about the 1949 Daytona Beach race:

On the afternoon of July 9, 1949, Vogt had the Olds 88 ready and waiting for Byron to tow to Daytona Beach for the next day's race, the 166-milers that would be the second of NASCAR's eight strictly stock races that year.

Byron first squeezed in a Saturday night midget race at Atlanta's Peach Bowl, which he won. He then drove all night and reach Daytona a few hours before race time.

Despite some vocal complaints form others drivers, France allowed three women to race: Sara Christian, Ethel Flock Mobley, and Louise Smith. France hoped the prospect of three women battling crusty moonshiner/racers on the beach, not to mention four Flock siblings on the same track, would draw a record crowd. But rainy weather caused a sparse showing of five thousand.

UDR: Never a fan of rain at the races

Dawsonsville's Gober Sosebee led the early laps, with Tim Flock and Red Byron stalking from behind. Louise Smith flipped her Ford in the chopped-up and rutted north turn, landing upside down and dangling from her seat belt. A dozen fans ran to her aid, but Smith insisted she wasn't hurt and asked if they'd help roll her back over so she could go back in the race. Smith stayed put in the driver's seat while the men flipped her car back onto its wheels, and she took off. Sosebee held the lead until losing a tire with six laps to go. It gave Byron the perfect opening to jump into the lead.

Byron was now a master of the complicated beach course. He knew how to drive at the surf's edge, so seawater could mist up and cool his brakes, but not too close. He knew, when his windshield became gauzy and opaque with salt spray, to eyeball the telephone poles of highway A1A to help him stay on the road. He knew how to shoulder his car into the turns, to broadslide thorough the knotting, slurried arcs, trusting [Red] Vogt's reinforced wheels to withstand the pressure. With no bucket seats in his strictly stock car, he had to hold tight to the steering wheel to keep from sliding into the passenger seat.

He and his Olds 88 kept a steady pace for the final twenty-five miles, and Byron comfortably crossed the finish line nearly two miles ahead of Tim Flock for his fourth Daytona victory, more than any other driver in the stock car racing's brief history.

Ethel Flock Mobley, driving with her AM radio blasting throughout the race, finished an impressive eleventh - ahead of brothers Bob and Fonty. Sara Christian finished eighteenth, and Louise Smith, after her flip, came in second to last.

Byron's win was a first for a General Motors car in a NASCAR race. In fact, the top four finishers were all Oldsmobiles. A Ford didn't even finish among the top ten, lost in a crowd of Chryslers, Mercurys, Hudsons, Cadillacs, and Buicks. ~ pp. 298-301

Credit: Sorrentolens Blog

Source: Daytona Beach Morning Journal

L to R: SROH member 200WINZ, NASCAR HOF crew chief Dale Inman, Uncle Dave

So while thinking of watching Gober slide his car through the sandy turns as Red waited patiently behind him, the Schaefer Hall of Fame and Ring of Honor wish fellow Schaefer brutha Uncle Dave...

Happy Birthday! SCHA-LOOT!!

SHOF entrant number 5: Uncle Dave

TMC