July 11, 1954 - Lee Petty Grabs Grand Rapids

July 11, 1954: Lee Petty wins his fifteenth career race in a 200-lap, 100-mile race on the half-mile, dirt Grand River Speedrome in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Herb Thomas apparently started on the pole; however, the rest of the starting line-up and lap leaders are unknown.

The Speedrome hosted two NASCAR Grand National races. The first in 1951 was won by Marshall Teague, and Papa Lee pocketed the second and last one three years later.

Credit: Retro Rockets

I Googled the dickens out of the interwebs for information about the race and speedway. I knew next to nothing about the racing history of Grand Rapids other than it is the home of former NASCAR driver, Johnny Benson, Jr.

Source: Wikipedia

After searching high and low, the only photo from the race I was able to find was this one of Walt Flinchum. Yep, that Walt Flinchum (/sarcasm). His eighth place finish at the Speedrome was the tops of his single-season, eight-race GN career.

#151000048 / gettyimages.com

While I found little to nothing about the 1954 race, I did land upon the site for the Speedrome Historical Society that features a nice write-up of the history of the track. One of the trivia nuggets I gleaned was that the track's announcer for many years was Bud Lindemann. Bud later became the host of a syndicated 'magazine' show called Car & Track that ran from the late 1960s through the mid 1970s. A few years ago, the show gained a new set of fans when Dale Earnhardt Jr. repackaged some of the old content into his Speed Channel series, Back In The Day.

Also, I found this video clip with highlights from the 1951 race. Although the coverage isn't from Lee's winning effort in 1954, the clip does provide great context for the track and the cars and racing conditions of the era.


TMC

July 11, 1952 - Lee Petty Mops Up Morristown

July 11, 1952: Starting third, Lee Petty wins a 200-lap, 100-mile race on the half-mile, dirt Morristown Speedway in New Jersey. Petty's win was his first in almost a year - with the previous one coming in Rochester, NY on July 31, 1951.

Morristown hosted five NASCAR Grand National races. Tim Flock won the first one in 1951 and the last one in 1955. Lee, Dick Rathman, and Buck Baker won the other three.

#81964533 / gettyimages.com

The race was the last of 11 career Grand National starts for trailblazing woman driver Louise Smith. She started and finished 30th in the 32-car field. In the book Girls Go Racing, author Dani Ben-Ari writes:

Known as the "First Lady of Racing", Louise Smith had a relatively short career, racing from 1949-1952. Yet during that time she managed to win 38 races in numerous events including late models, NASCAR modified (which accounted for 28 of those victories), midgets and sportsman.

Born on July 31, 1916 in Barnesville, GA, Louise became a racecar driver only because she became bored while watching her first event at the Daytona Beach and Road Course in 1949. It was then she decided to participate instead of remaining a spectator. She drove her family's brand new Ford coupe, which she promptly wrecked. But it was enough to get her into the record books as part of the first female trio to compete together in a NASCAR event, along with Ethel Mobley and Sara Christian whom she also raced with at Langley Speedway that same year. Her last race was held at Morristown Speedway.

Although Louise stopped racing in 1952, she returned to the sport nineteen years later as the owner for several drivers, including Ronnie Thomas in 1978... She passed away at the age of 90 on March 4, 2006. ~ pp. 13-14

Regarding the race, Greg Fielden writes in Forty Years of Stock Car Racing - Vol. 1:

Petty scampered past Tim Flock in the 125th lap and led the rest of the way. As he pushed his Plymouth past Flock's Hudson, he waved "bye bye" to his rival and sped uncontested to the $1,000 top prize.

Flock finished second and Neil Cole third. Ralph Liguori ran a strong race to finish fourth, Ronnie Kohler came in fifth.

Herb Thomas led the first 49 laps after winning the pole position. After losing the lead to Flock, he was forced into the wall by a slow car. Thomas lost a lap in the incident, but came on like gangbusters. He made up the lost lap and was closing in on the leader when a wheel bearing burned out after 123 laps. As Thomas limped to the pit area, Petty zipped past Flock and set sail. ~ pp. 91-92

Driver Duke Keller started only one GN race - the 1952 one at Morristown. But he certainly had a memorable race, and he proved he deserved his "Duke" nickname. Fielden writes:

Duke Keller flipped his Henry J in the fourth lap. The roof was mashed onto the steering wheel, but Keller was able to climb out unhurt. He beat and banged on the roof, raised it enough distance to get back in the car and drove for two more laps. A badly bent chassis forced him out after six laps. ~ p. 92

Until reading Fielden's recap of the race, I'd never heard of the short-lived Henry J. I suppose Keller's car resembled this street version.

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

July 10, 1960 - Pettys Pull A Heidelberg Heist

July 10, 1960: Starting from the pole position, Lee Petty dusted the field to win the final NASCAR Grand National race at Heidelberg Raceway near Pittsburgh, PA. Lee finished three laps ahead of second place, son Richard Petty.

Lee likely had a certain fondness for Heidelberg. Four Grand National races were held at the track, and Lee won two of them - the first one and the last one. Also, Lee's win in the first race at Heidelberg on October 2, 1949, also happened to be his first career GN win.

The field approaches the green. Pole-winner, Lee Petty, flanked by Ned Jarrett. Rex White and the future King on row two.

The race on the half-mile, dirt track was scheduled for 200 laps and 100 miles. Fellow NASCAR Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett started alongside Lee and led the first 19 laps. But Ned lost an engine in his Ford [insert joke here Ford haters], and he finished 16th in the 17-car field. Lee took over the top spot and led the rest of the way. Rain was the only thing preventing Lee from leading the rest of the 200 laps. Heavy showers moved in, the race was ended 12 laps short of its scheduled finish, and Lee was flagged as the winner.

As best I can tell, the Lee-Richard, 1-2 finish was only the second time in Grand National history for a father and son to sweep the top two spots. The Pettys were also the first to do it at Lakewood Speedway in June 1959. This unique scenario would not be repeated again until February 1988 when son Davey Allison finished second to his father, Bobby, in the Daytona 500.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via Google News Archive

Hot tamale! How about those socks and sneakers on Miss Heidelberg (or whatever her title may have been)? Eat your heart out Miss Sprint Cup.

Source: Pittsburgh Press via Google News Archive (nav to p. 98)

Lee won just one more race after Heidelberg in 1960. He scored his 54th and final victory at Speedway Park in Jacksonville on November 20, 1960. About three months later, Lee's career was all but ended (and almost his life) in a horrific wreck with Johnny Beachamp in a 100-mile qualifying race at Daytona.

Although the last of the four Grand National races was held in 1960, the track continued to operate until 1973. In 2012, an historical marker was erected to memorialize the location and history of the track.

TMC

July 7, 1956 - Lee Petty Sparkles at Spartanburg

July 7, 1956: Lee Petty wins a 200-lap, 100-mile race at Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Polesitter Fireball Roberts finishes second behind Petty. The win is Lee's second of three career victories at the track.

The race featured some interesting car numbers. In contemporary racing times, about the only unique numbers raced are those with a leading zero. But in the 1950s, it wasn't unusual at all for cars to feature 3-digit numbers - or even a letter on the door panels and roof. Some examples from the Spartanburg race:

• 300C - Speedy Thompson - finished 7th
• 760 - Brownie King - finished 12th
  
• 300   Buck Baker - finished 13th
• 264   Johnny Allen - finished 15th
• 999   Wilbur Rakestraw - finished 16th
• 500D   Herb Thomas - finished 17th

Perhaps teams quit using that third digit because it made the car too heavy and slow. Hmm...

Perry Allen Wood summarized the race in his book, Silent Speedways of the Carolinas:

The Grand National tour visited Spartanburg twice in 1956, the first time on Saturday night, July 7th. The event was moved from the prestigious Independence Day for a 250-miler on the Raleigh asphalt... On the dirt, 18 cars entered with Kiekhaefer rolling out two high-powered Chryslers for Buck [Baker] and Speedy [Thompson] and a Dodge for Herb [Thomas]. It was [Fireball] Roberts in one of three De Paolo Fords on the pole with a new track record... Only seven cars finished as [Gwyn] Staley's Chevy slowed in the groove entering the first turn with a sour engine and Thomas, in an effort to avoid him, creamed the boards in his Dodge... Roberts ran hard all night but could not catch the streaking Petty who took the $850 first prize in his Dodge. ~ p. 7-8

Source: Spartanburg Herald-Journal via Google News Archive

TMC

July 4, 1953 - Lee Petty hits Piedmont Payday

July 4, 1953: Lee Petty wins the inaugural NASCAR Grand National race at Piedmont Interstate Fairground track in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

After finishing 3rd at Monroe County Fairgrounds in Rochester, NY on July 3rd, Lee DROVE approximately 860 miles overnight from New York to Spartanburg. (Rochester's winner Herb Thomas,  second place Dick Rathman, and Tim Flock also made the trek - though not necessarily by the same mode of transportation.)

Lee likely drove U.S. highway 220 as interstates weren't established yet in 1953.

In his book, Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay and Big Bill France, Daniel Pierce writes (emphasis is mine):

While many fans envied the life of the racer, barnstorming could a be a grueling, and even dangerous, experience. Many of the top drivers arrived at races a few days early in order to help promote the event in exchange for room and board and $100 to $200. As Tim Flock remembered, "You would do anything for a promoter." There seemed to be little planning of the NASCAR Grand National schedule, and races a few days apart could be separated by hundreds of miles, forcing drives to haul their cars overnight, make repairs and prepare the car, catch a nap, and then race. After a July 3, 1953, race at the Monroe County Fairgrounds in Rochester, New York, Herb Thomas and Tim Flock towed their Hudsons through the night so that they could drive in a July 4 race at the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  Arriving at the track in the early afternoon, the two lay down in the shade of their cars in the infield to get some sleep before the 8 PM race. A man hired by Champion Spark Plugs to post signs along the fence failed to notice the two sleeping drivers and backed his truck onto Flock's head. The driver panicked and left the truck sitting there, and Thomas and six highway patrolmen had to lift the truck off Flock. Flock was rushed to the hospital and amazingly suffered no long-term damage. The accident did keep him out of the next six races and possibly cost him that year's title. ~ pp. 151-152

Perry Allen Wood recaps the particulars of the race in his book, Silent Speedways of the Carolinas:

Fun with Flocks was not over. No doubt bolstered by his brother's calamity and who knows what else, Fonty Flock went out and qualified second in the field of 19. Then NASCAR said he and pole-sitter Buck Baker made their runs too late and both had to start at the rear of the field. Baker retreated and strapped himself in while Fonty had a conniption, maybe two. Probably he had been at Spartanburg General watching over Timothy, who had a major headache. Whatever the reason, Font was going home before going to the rear. He demanded second spot. Fonty stood out on the track in front of the grid and made them drive around him. No doubt, all 18 had something to say as they rolled past. However, Truman Fontello Flock, one of the real showmen in all of racing history, decided to give the crowd what they came to see. He fired up the Frank Christian-owned, Red Vogt-wrenched, 1953 Hudson 14 and decided to show 'em what the Flock Boys were all about. When Fonty picked up shotgun on the field, Official Start Alvin Hawkins waved the green and the Fairgrounds' 2,200 miles of Grand National history was underway. Poleman by default Curtis Turner put his Olds out front and stayed until he had to make two long stops just before halfway and Herb Thomas' Smokey Yunick Hudson led. Thomas won the night before in Rochester. On lap 174, Herb pitted for fuel and Buck took over first, even after being penalized to the rear. Five laps later, he had to gas up, too, and Lee Petty in a '53 Dodge led the final 21 circuits for his 11th career win. ~ p. 6

Source: Spartanburg Herald-Journal via Google News Archive

TMC

July 1, 1956 - Lee Petty Whips Weaverville

July 1, 1956: Lee Petty nips Jim Paschal to win the 200-lap, 100-mile Grand National race on the half-mile, dirt Asheville-Weaverville Speedway in Weaverville, NC.

Lee's victory was his first of the season. He won again two races later at Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds in Spartanburg, SC. The season was dominated by NASCAR Hall of Famer Buck Baker's 14 wins in Carl Kiekaefer's Chryslers. Lee managed to score only two trophies for the season and finished 4th in the year-end standings.

In Silent Speedways of the Carolinas, Perry Allen Wood writes:

The factory wars raged as 29 took the green on July 1, 1956, when Commandant Kiekhaefer entered four big white Mopars, three Chryslers and a Dodge. As incredibly successful as they were, none of them were factors. Fireball [Roberts] nailed the pole in a De Paolo Ford and a star-studded field chased him. He led over three-quarters of the race until a blowout ended his run. When the checkers fell, it was across the nose of another Mopar, that of Lee Petty, with the red and silver CU Later Alligator Mercury of Jim Paschal second [TMC: and a future Petty driver] ... A paltry $850 was Petty's take-home pay this scorching summer Sunday. ~ pp. 220-221

Lee flashes across the finish line with runner-up Paschal (75) close behind. A shirtless, teenaged Richard Petty waves to his dad as he takes the checkers.

#84314873 / gettyimages.com

Source: Spartanburg Herald-Journal via Google News Archive

TMC