July 18, 1958 - Petty Scores In Canada Eh

July 18, 1958: Starting 3rd in his #42 Oldsmobile, Lee Petty wins the Jim Mideon 500 at the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto, Ontario Canada. The race was a dizzying 100 laps on the 1/3-mile track. The 33 miles took only 46 minutes to run.

Source: CanadianRacer.com

To date, the 1958 Toronto race remains one of only two NASCAR Grand National / Cup races held outside the United States. NASCAR's convertible series also ran a single event at C.N.E. - a 150-lap event in 1956.

Source: Toronto Public Library

I'm not really convinced the name of the race was the Jim Mideon 500. Though I've found a source or two to indicate that was the name, records of the race are pretty sketchy. Plus, the name doesn't make much sense. 100 laps - 33 miles - where is the relevance of 500? Besides, who the heck is Jim Mideon?

Rex White started from the pole in Julian Petty's Chevrolet with Jim Reed qualifying alongside. Lee and Cotton Owens comprised row 2. Shorty Rollins and Johnny Mackison timed 5th and 6th. And Richard Petty in his first NASCAR Grand National race qualified a respectable 7th in the 19-car field in a #142 Oldsmobile.

CNE 1950s - Source: TaylorOnHistory.com

In August 2012, Mark Aumann wrote an article about the race for NASCAR.com, a portion of which is excerpted below:

In 1952, Buddy Shuman won a 200-lapper on a half-time dirt track in Niagara Falls, Ontario, just across the United States border. That remained the only time NASCAR's Cup division had ventured outside of the contiguous 48, until promoters in Toronto decided to invite America's best stock-car drivers to headline the Jim Mideon 500 on July 18, 1958.

Because the record books don't show that specific race title, it's unclear who Jim Mideon was or what the 500 stood for, but according to newspaper reports, nearly 10,000 fans packed the grandstands that evening. After three heat races -- won by Shorty Rollins, Lee Petty and Cotton Owens -- and several shorter races involving local drivers, the feature race was a 100-lap event on a track White described as being nearly a carbon copy of Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"It was a track around a football field that was as flat as it could be, in a big stadium with a huge crowd," White said. "They were very enthusiastic fans. It was quite interesting to go there and race, I thought. It was almost identical to Bowman Gray, only it was a little bigger. But it was about the same width. It was very narrow and passing was a hard thing to do." What complicated matters was a heavy rain that occurred between qualifying and the race. Without the benefit of jet dryers, NASCAR officials had to dry the track as best they could -- and eventually decided to go ahead and start the race even though it was still very damp.The record book shows that White led the first 71 laps, but he believes it was Owens who was the class of the field early.

In a race which took all of 46 minutes to run, Petty led the final 28 laps and took home the first-place purse of $575. And the whole thing might have been relegated to the dust bin of history if not for one interesting fact: it was Richard Petty's Cup debut.

Having just turned 21 that summer, Richard had driven in a Convertible race the week before. So Lee loaded up a well-worn Oldsmobile backup car, put a "1" in the front of the No. 42 and towed both cars to Canada.

"Richard was just barely old enough to go racing," White said. "I don't remember exactly too much but Richard done pretty good for his first time out. For as long as Richard had been around the sport, all he had to do is get in the car and turn the steering wheel. He already had the training for years, watching his dad. It made it a lot easier for him starting out than a normal young kid."

Well, "pretty good" might be stretching the truth just a bit. The future King's first race was definitely memorable, but not necessarily in a good way. His father, in a hurry to catch the leader, became impatient with the driver of the slower No. 142 Olds and eventually knocked him into the wall and out of the race after 55 laps.

A year ago as my 200 Wins blog series was in the home stretch, I blogged about theToronto race. Aumann's article was posted about a month after mine. I wish the dates had been reversed so I could have had additional reference material!

Track and grandstands 1956 - source: TaylorOnHistory.com

The race didn't merit a lot of reporting back in the deep south - or even in Toronto itself apparently. A 33-mile race - north of the border? Fuhgetaboutit. However, I did manage to find one quip about the race appended to a brief column about Jim Reed's victory in Buffalo the day after.

Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal via Google News Archive

Though not a Petty win, the Buffalo race does include a Petty-related trivia nugget. Twice in NASCAR's history has the pole speed been slower than the average race speed. The first time was in 1955 at Airborne Speedway in Plattsburgh, NY when Lee Petty's race speed was about 4 MPH greater than his pole-winning speed. The second time was in the 1958 Buffalo race. Reed's 48 MPH average race speed was 10 MPH faster than Rex White's pole speed of 38 MPH - apparently the slowest pole speed for a NASCAR GN / Cup race. As he did the night before in Toronto, White raced a Chevrolet fielded by ... Lee's brother, Julian Petty.

NASCAR's top series didn't return to Toronto, but racing continued at CNE. The local guys ran regularly at least through the mid-60s as best I can tell. Racing eventually faded away, but the CNE stadium continued to host events such as concerts and an Evel Knievel jump over 13 Mack trucks in 1974.

Source: The Telegraph

In the mid 70s, the stadium was re-purposed into an awkwardly constructed, multi-sport facility. The covered grandstand became sideline seats for Canadian football as well as the outfield seats for Major League Baseball's expansion team, the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays played here a bit before moving to the Skydome.

TMC

July 18 - This day in Petty history - part 2

Another bonus blog entry about the history of Richard Petty nestled amongst my posts about his 200 wins...

1958 - Richard Petty makes his first of what became 1,184 career NASCAR Grand National / Winston Cup starts. He started 7th in a field of 19 cars in a race apparently known as the Jim Mideon 500, a 100-lap race on the 1/3-mile paved track at the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto, Ontario. Why the race was named a '500' when it was only 100 laps on a short-track is beyond me. Or maybe, just maybe *gasp* Wikipedia might be wrong. What!! It can't be. Or can it?

NASCAR's Nationwide series has raced in recent years in Montreal and a couple of times in Mexico. And a few NASCAR drivers raced Winston Cup-type cars in exhibition races in Australia in the late 1980s and Japan in the 1990s. But to date, the 1959 Toronto race remains the one and only official, NASCAR Grand National / Cup race ever held outside the United States. Even though CNE only hosted one Grand National race, the track had a history of racing and fast cars.

About a week earlier, Richard made his professional racing debut driving a #42 Oldsmobile in a convertible race at Columbia Speedway in South Carolina. He, crew chief Dale Inman, and crewman (and Maurice Petty's father-in-law) Red Myler, bolted a roof to the car, updated the car number to #142 (to distinguish Richard's car from Lee Petty's #42), and hauled it to Canada.

Richard wrecked his Oldsmobile and finished 17th in his debut GN start. Well, kinda. Apparently, he wasn't super fast in his debut start. His father came up on him at speed, realized the car was holding him up, treated him like any other backmarker and punted his own son into the fence ending his night. All was not lost for the Petty family, as Lee did go on to win the race.

In the book King Richard I authored by Petty and William Neely, Richard recalled:

Daddy didn't give me any special consideration on the racetrack. I was just another car to him, and he would just as soon beat me as he would a total stranger...I was in third or fourth spot, and it was late in the race. Cotton Owens was leading and Daddy was chasing him. They both came up to lap me. Cotton knew I was a rookie so he backed off to give me time to get through the corner. He knew he could pass me coming out of the turn. Well, this was the chance Daddy had been waiting for. When Cotton backed off, Daddy went charging right by him. The only trouble was here I was right in Daddy's path. He hit me and knocked me into the fence. The impact tore the bumper clean off my car...I didn't say anything after the race, but it made me mad. I mean all I was trying to do was stay out of the way, and he came barreling in there and wham! he knocked me into the boards. It wasn't easy fixing up those cars; he knew that. But that was how Daddy drove. ~ pp. 142-143.

During the King's final season as a driver, Pepsi released an 8-bottle set commemorating highlights of Petty's career. Among them was a bottle recognizing his first start in 1958. (I'll pardon Pepsi's error of referring to it as his first "Winston Cup" race.)

Then - one year later to the day...

1959 - Richard wins his first professional stock car race - a 200-lap NASCAR convertible race at Columbia Speedway in South Carolina. The win is not included in Petty's 200 Grand National / Winston Cup victory total.

Source: The News and Courier, July 20, 1959 via Google News Archive

It was his only win in the convertible series, and the event was the final convertible series race at Columbia. NASCAR ended the convertible series at the end of 1959, and Richard turned his focus to full-bodied sedans.

Greg Fielden recaps the race in his book, Rumblin' Ragtops: The History of NASCAR's Fabulous Convertible Division:

Richard Petty, driving a new '59 Plymouth Convertible, scored the first victory of his career in the 100-miler at Columbia Speedway. ... Petty, who turned 22 two weeks earlier, was taking his second ride in the Plymouth after driving '57 Oldsmobiles for parts of two seasons. His father Lee provided him with the new car at Daytona for the July 4 Sweepstakes Firecracker 250 - two days after his 22nd birthday. ... Petty became the third youngest driver to win a major NASCAR division contest. ... Petty was asked how it felt to finally crack victory circle. "The only difference I can tell you is first place pays more than second," he said. Petty pocketed $900 of his 56.382 MPH ride. Jack Smith chased Petty for the second half of the event, but had to settle for second place. ~ p. 123

Driver Larry Frank got very mad that night. He thought he had a good chance of winning the race at Columbia. He let off a bit to ride and conserve his tires - until Tiny Lund spun him. Larry was normally a calm and level-headed driver. But with his opportunity to win having sailed out the window, he got so mad he socked Tiny Lund right in the mush and broke his nose.

Photo (and story) courtesy of Margaret Frank, Larry's widow

Blog reader, fellow Petty fan, and Columbia resident - Gamecock43 - came through once again. He personally visited the archives of the Columbia library and found the following article in the July 19, 1959, edition of The State newspaper. Simply put, its a treasured contribution to this year-long blog series.


TMC