REAL NASCAR

By the early 1960s NASCAR had rebounded vigorously from the precipitous decline that began in 1957.  New speedways at Daytona, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Bristol; a stable full of talented and charismatic drivers—although Curtis Turner had been “banned for life” for attempting to unionize drivers--; and the return of the auto manufacturers and their money—first through the back door and then openly in 1962 when Henry Ford II publicly announced Ford’s return—helped pack the stands once again and brought newfound credibility to the sport.

By 1964, however, clouds—once again at least partly produced by the auto manufacturers—loomed over NASCAR.  This time the issue was not a united walkout by automakers, but the intense battle between Chrysler and Ford over dominance on the track and Big Bill France’s desire to keep the playing field relatively level between the manufacturers.

Chrysler upset that competitive balance in 1964 when it introduced the Hemi engine and dominated the season.   The Hemis “KO’d much of the opposition” at the ’64 Daytona 500 with Richard Petty leading a 1-2-3 Plymouth sweep.  Petty went on to win eight more races and win the first of his seven championships in NASCAR’s top division.  David Pearson was not far behind winning eight races in a Cotton Owens Dodge.  Hemi-powered cars also won almost all of the major races that year with Jim Paschal winning the World 600, A.J. Foyt taking the checkers at the Firecracker 400, and Buck Baker cruising to his third career victory in the Southern 500.

In late 1964, under pressure from Ford and from fans who were tired of seeing a Plymouth/Dodge parade, Bill France announced that the Hemi would be banned for the 1965 season.  Not long afterward, Chrysler head honcho Ronnie Householder announced that the make would boycott NASCAR.  Under contract with Plymouth, Richard Petty took to the drag strips of the Southeast racing the #43/Jr. Hemi-powered Barracuda with the words “Outlawed” emblazoned on the side.

The boycott did not work out well for Chrysler, Richard Petty, or NASCAR and Bill France.  Chrysler officials and fans had to stand by and watch a Ford parade dominate the 1965 season.  Richard Petty’s drag racing career was tragically punctuated by a horrible accident when his out-of-control car flew into the crowd at Dallas, Georgia, injuring eight people and killing an eight-year-old boy.  Bill France faced a precipitous drop in attendance at races and a virtual mutiny from track owners who had trouble selling tickets to the Ford-dominated races. 

Finally, France reached an accord with Chrysler to allow Hemi-powered, shorter wheelbase cars on tracks “of one mile or less” and by late July the factory-backed Plymouths and Dodges—along with drivers Richard Petty, Bobby Isaac, and David Pearson—were back on NASCAR’s tracks.  In order to spark publicity and fan interest, France even lifted his “lifetime ban” on Curtis Turner.  Chrysler’s return and Curtis Turner’s victory in American 500 at Rockingham’s brand new North Carolina Motor Speedway caused many to believe that NASCAR was back on track to becoming a major American professional sport.

Those thoughts were premature, to say the least, however, when Ford decided to boycott NASCAR after the hemi-powered Plymouths and Dodges took seven of the top ten spots in the Daytona 500 and NASCAR’s subsequent announcement that it would not allow Ford teams to run the new 427-cubic-inch single overhead cam engine (SOHC) without a punitive weight penalty.  The 1966 season was a sad repeat of 1965 with the manufacturers’ roles reversed.  Attendance once again plummeted at NASCAR races.  Indeed, the spring Rebel 400 at Darlington attracted only 12,000 fans with 5,000 of those being Boy Scouts who were given complimentary tickets.  A sidelined Ned Jarrett lamented:  “We just can’t keep treating the spectators the way we have the last couple of seasons.”

In the midst of the boycott chaos, NASCAR also experienced one of its worst periods ever in terms of driver safety.  The death of top stars Joe Weatherly and Fireball Roberts in 1964 ushered in a period when NASCAR, in the words of Buck Baker, became “a pretty jumpy game” where “they might just as well just give ‘em all a shot of whiskey and drop the flag.”  The deaths of Jimmy Pardue, Billy Wade, Buren Skeen, and Harold Kite caused many drivers to question their future in the sport.

The constant wrangling with auto manufacturers combined with safety issues led to what Richard Petty termed, “the first mass exodus of top drivers in NASCAR history.”  In late 1966 and early 1967, Marvin Panch, Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett, and Fred Lorenzen all retired as drivers.  As Ned Jarrett observed:  “I got to looking at the security, or lack of security really, that this sport offered and I wanted to spend more time with the family, the kids were growing up, so I made my decision to retire at the end of the 1966 season.”

NASCAR entered the 1967 season at as low a point as it had ever experienced in its almost twenty-year history.  Indeed, the year was very reminiscent of 1957. 

Like 1957, however, the sport bounced back.  While he had lost some of his most recognizable stars, Big Bill France had established stars Richard Petty, David Pearson, and—on occasion—Curtis Turner who he could billboard at his promotions.  The retirements had also opened the door of opportunity for probably the greatest generation of drivers in NASCAR history.  The group—including Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Bobby Isaac, and Buddy Baker—were drivers who not only could handle the close, door-to-door beating and banging of the short tracks but who had no fear of the high backs and harrowing speeds of the new superspeedways.  In addition, all of these guys had come up poor and working-class fans could identify with them and their struggles to make it in the sport.

At a time when NASCAR most needed it, 1967 also brought a story which captured the nation’s attention and imagination; Richard Petty’s dramatic ten-race win streak from Bowman Gray Stadium on August 12 to North Wilkesboro on October 1.  While some observers have downplayed Petty’s accomplishment and contend that he faced little real competition—especially on the short tracks that most owners of factory-backed cars shunned—the streak included the Southern 500 and races at Martinsville and North Wilkesboro against the top factory-backed Fords and Plymouths and Dodges.  Indeed, Ford became obsessed with Petty’s streak and threw everything they had at stopping him.  In addition, anyone who has ever followed racing closely knows that the odds of going through such a stretch of races without a wreck, mechanical failure, or human error of some kind are tremendously long.

It was during the 1967 season that many people began to refer to Richard Petty as simply “The King.”  With a presidential election coming up bumper stickers popped up all over the Piedmont South reading “Richard Petty For President!”  But it was not just Petty’s talent that drew the fans, it was also his charisma, particularly a unique ability to make people feel like they knew him and that he cared about them personally. 

NASCAR, and Petty, also benefitted from the fact that there were plenty of rivals out there at the time ready to challenge his dominance at every race.  The late 1960s brought one of NASCAR’s great rivalries—one that would last for more than a decade—between two of the sport’s all-time greatest; Richard Petty and David Pearson.  Many forget that while Petty won the championship in 1967, Pearson dominated the late 60s winning the title in 1966, ‘68, and ‘69, the only three years he ever ran what would be considered a full schedule.

Rivalries are great for a sport, but feuds can be even better at fueling fan interest and the late 1960s brought one of the most intense and bitter ones in the sport’s history; Richard Petty vs. Bobby Allison.  Allison burst on the NASCAR scene in 1966 mostly piloting a Chevrolet Chevelle without any factory backing.  As his brother Eddie recalled:  “To take a car out the backyard in Hueytown, Alabama and go beat that [Petty] Plymouth was unreal.  It was so neat, because Bobby scared them hot-dog racers to death.  This hick from Alabama [by way of Miami, Florida] could come come out and beat them with this race car that they thought couldn’t outrun a kiddie car.”

The feud began in November 1967 at Asheville-Weaverville Speedway with Petty bumping Allison up the track to take the lead and Allison returning the favor to take the win.  The incident sparked hard feelings that boiled over the next July at Islip [NY] Speedway when after another bumping/blocking incident (as usual, each side asserted that it was the other’s fault) Petty crew members Maurice Petty and Dale Inman went after Bobby after the race, knocking him down and piling on top until pulled off by bystanders.  From then on, whenever the two appeared on the track together (especially on the short tracks) fans flocked in and the tension was palatable.

NASCAR also came out of the doldrums in the late 1960s by not only relying on a tried and true formula of good old boy drivers and beating and banging on the racetrack, but by new innovations that injected excitement into the racing.  Most importantly was the construction of new tracks at Michigan and Talladega which, combined with ever more powerful engines and aerodynamic cars from Ford and Chrysler, produced a literal race to see who would crack the 200 mph barrier—a race Buddy Baker would win in March 1970 at Talladega.

As a historian I try to avoid offering advice to people or predicting the future based on the past.  At the same time, I do believe we can learn some lessons from the ways NASCAR bounced back from severe downturns in its past:

1.  Downturns can be good – In the aftermath of both 1957 and 1967 the sport came back even stronger.  This can partly be explained by the need for creative thinking and for economic efficiencies that such downturns naturally produce.  The lower costs of getting in to the top ranks of NASCAR in both cases opened the door for new drivers to display their considerable talents.

2.  Remember your core audience – Downturns also remind the folks in charge of any business to remember your core constituents.  Big Bill France always came back to his base in the Piedmont South when times got rough and was rewarded for remembering where his money came from.

3.  Stars are important – Most notably in the case of NASCAR, it was Richard Petty’s rise to superstardom that boosted the sport dramatically in 1967.  Fireball Roberts and Junior Johnson did much the same in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  It should also be remembered that it iss not only what stars do on the track, but the connection they build with fans off the track that is important.

4.  Contrasts are important – As Humpy Wheeler once observed about local short track racing, “For every race car, at least thirty people were gonna come to see it race.  Fifteen to see it be successful . . . and fifteen to see the guy get beat.”  NASCAR in both periods benefitted from contrasting (and often conflicting) personalities; good guys and bad guys; quiet guys and outgoing guys; Ford guys, Chevy guys, and Mopar guys.  Interest in racing is stimulated by not only having someone to cheer for, but having someone to cheer against.  I’ll never forget the guy right in front of me at Bristol in 1994 who stood up every lap and shot Dale Earnhardt the bird.  Looked like he was having a great time.

5.  Feuds are important – Classic feuds—Curtis Turner vs. Lee Petty, Bobby Allison vs. Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip vs. Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt vs. Jeff Gordon—have always packed the fans in.

6.  Creativity/Innovation is important – The worst thing a business or sport can do in the midst of a downturn in pull inward, stop innovating, and play it safe.  Downturns are a time for critical self-evaluation, a time to try new things, and quit doing old things “just because we’ve always done them this way.”  NASCAR came out of earlier downturns by taking some big gambles that ended up paying huge dividends.

As we enter a new NASCAR season here’s hoping that another annus horribilis (2009) fades quickly into the past.  I believe that can happen much quicker if the powers that be in Daytona and Charlotte look to the lessons of the past.

 

Next week:  “Racin’ on the Beach (Or How Daytona got to be Daytona)”

 

 



The start of the 2010 NASCAR season brings to the forefront a great degree of uncertainty as the sport comes off—in the words of Queen Elizabeth II—an annus horribilis that most folks around the track—perhaps with the exception of Jimmy Johnson--would just as soon forget.  While looking at history does not give us all the answers to our problems, I do think it might be helpful to look at similar times when NASCAR experienced serious downturns and where the very future of the sport was in question. 

Two periods immediately come to mind:  1957, when the auto makers—who had just entered the sport two years earlier—suddenly left NASCAR and 1967, when the sport struggled to come back from consecutive years of factory boycotts.  Today I’ll take up 1957, a year when NASCAR’s fall was even more precipitous than it was in 2009.

NASCAR experienced its most rapid period of growth in history in 1955 and 1956.  During the period, the sport grew well beyond its southern roots, spread throughout the country, and brought riches—at least temporarily—far beyond their imagination to many of its working class participants.  The explosive growth was fueled by the entry of Detroit auto manufacturers—particularly Chevrolet and Ford—who invested millions of dollars in the sport.

While Bill France, Sr. had long courted Detroit, it was the appearance in 1955 of a short, stocky, balding, cigar-chomping, ultra-competitive ball of energy by the name of Carl Kiekhaefer which served as the inadvertent catalyst to bring the automakers into NASCAR.  Kiekhaefer came to the sport as a way of promoting his Mercury outboard boat motors and find an outlet for his competitive urges.  In the process, the wild success of his Chrysler 300’s and Dodge 500’s--piloted to consecutive Grand National championships by Tim Flock and Buck Baker--unwittingly brought a free advertising bonanza to Chrysler and prompted a determined response—along with lots of money--by Ford and General Motors.

Both Chevy and Ford jumped in late in 1955 and fielded their first factory-backed cars at Darlington’s Labor Day Southern 500.  The victory by Herb Thomas in a Smokey Yunick-prepared  ’55 Chevy and the splash made by Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly in their Charlie Schwam Ford purple “Wild Hogs” brought the automakers in with a vengeance. 

By the 1957 season, Chevy had a $2.6 million budget for NASCAR and Ford was not far behind.  Indeed, Smokey Yunick signed a contract at the beginning of the season with Ford for $40,000 a year, a million dollar life insurance policy, free dental and medical care, a free Thunderbird, trucks and station wagons for his team, and dynamometers and other advanced equipment for his shop.  Ford even paid the expenses for his shapely young “traveling secretary.”

Life changed dramatically for others in the sport as well.  Top drivers were now flying to races, staying in fine hotels, eating steak at every meal, and drinking the finest bonded liquor.  Instead of hanging out with the bootleggers that he had partnered with to create NASCAR, Bill France now hobnobbed with Detroit bigwigs like Ed Cole of Chevrolet, Bunky Knudsen of Pontiac, Jacques Passino of Ford, and the legendary Harley Earl of the GM Styling Division.  As Richard Petty recalled after his father Lee signed a lucrative contract with Oldsmobile, “I would have been willing to bet. . . we would never have to sleep in the car again.”

In June 1957, however, the Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA) instituted a ban on all participation by its members in racing or race promotion.  As quickly as prosperity had arrived in NASCAR, it disappeared.

The seeds of the AMA ban had been sown even as NASCAR skyrocketed in popularity and became awash in Detroit money.  An era of carnage on the race track in 1955 where five top name auto racers—including defending Indy 500 champ Bill Vukovich—died in on-track incidents sparked a broad concern for safety.  The June 1955 tragedy at LeMans, France where Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes flew into the crowd killing over 80 people prompted even more alarm.  Many in the public—and in legislative bodies across America—became concerned about rising speeds on the highway as Detroit produced more and more powerful cars and promoted them through NASCAR. 

By mid-1957, Detroit could no longer stand the heat and instituted its immediate ban.  While Bill France and NASCAR tried to keep up a brave face, the sport was devastated.  All too quickly the Pettys were back sleeping in the car, drivers were eating “tube steaks” at the track concession stand and drinking moonshine, and Bill France was back hanging out with his old bootlegger buddies in North Wilkesboro, Hickory, and Martinsville.

While NASCAR struggled for a couple of years, the sport bounced back stronger than ever.  Indeed, in 1957, NASCAR and Bill France reassessed the sport and its assets and looked to its past to secure its future.  First, France pulled back on the rapid expansion of the sport and focused on his core constituency in the Piedmont South.  He cut back on races in Washington, Oregon, California, South Dakota, and Nebraska and promoted the bulk of NASCAR races at old standbys like Darlington, Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta, North Wilkesboro, Martinsville, Hickory, Bowman Gray Stadium, Hillsborough, and Asheville-Weaverville.

France also shifted the focus of the sport away from the cars themselves to the deep talent pool of rowdy, good old boys attracted to NASCAR Grand National racing. Curtis Turner, Joe Weatherly, Buck Baker, Fireball Roberts, Lee Petty, and others could always be counted on to put on a show for the fans.

NASCAR and France also benefitted from the return of Junior Johnson to the sport—home from a stint in the federal penitentiary in Chillicothe, Ohio.  No one in this era—with the possible exception of Curtis Turner--drew NASCAR’s core cracker fans to the stands better than Junior.  As reporter Dick Thompson put it, Johnson “looks like a wrestler and drives like a maniac.”  The fans loved it.

Rebuilding NASCAR was not just a function of returning to the past in the late 1950s.  France and many of NASCAR’s top owners, mechanics, and drivers had glimpsed the good life and were determined to return the sport to the high level it had achieved before the factory ban.  They found back doors to Detroit and gradually brought the manufacturers back in.  Perhaps most importantly, Bill France risked his financial well-being and his ownership of NASCAR itself to construct Daytona International Speedway and usher the sport into a new era of ever escalating speeds and superspeedways.  By 1963, the sport was back bigger than ever and the bad memories of 1957 had faded.

Next week Part II – 1967

 

The announcement that Danica Patrick will compete in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series this year has produced a media frenzy.  But women racing in NASCAR is as old as the sanctioning body itself.

Women racers in NASCAR were a product of occasional “powder-puff derbies”* common at weekly race tracks across the nation in the 1930s and 40s.  After World War II, as stock car racing grew increasingly popular such races became regular features at the growing number of tracks across the Piedmont South. 

In 1948, promoters Buddy Davenport and Joe Littlejohn began running powder puffs in conjunction with the main features at their South Carolina Racing Association (an early rival to NASCAR) events at Greenville-Pickens Speedway and Spartanburg’s Hub City Speedway.  Most of these races were dominated by Sarah Christian, wife of Atlanta-area bootlegger and stock car owner Frank Christian.  Another early woman pioneer was Greenville’s Louise Smith who not only raced but promoted races—including so-called “colored races” for African-American drivers.  In 1949, Smith began competing against men in SCRA races and Christian and others soon followed.

Bill France noticed the success of his SCRA rivals in attracting crowds with women drivers and recruited them for his own promotions.  Indeed, Sarah Christian competed in the first NASCAR Strictly Stock (predecessor of Sprint Cup) race at the Charlotte Speedway in June 1949 finishing a respectable fourteenth in a field of thirty-three.

For the second strictly stock race at Daytona, NASCAR heavily promoted the entry in the race of three women—Sara Christian, Ethel Flock Mobley, and Louise Smith.  NASCAR publicist Houston Lawing issued a press release asserting, “the woman auto racer is here to stay, like the atom bomb, rum and home hair waves.” 

The early women women racers did have some limited success.  Much to the chagrin of legendary NASCAR pioneers Bob and Fonty Flock and to the delight of fellow competitors—at least those who finished tenth or better—Ethel Flock Mobley finished ahead of her brothers at Daytona in eleventh place.  Sara Christian finished fifth in the Pittsburgh race and sixth in the demanding 200-mile race at Langhorne where NASCAR officials escorted her to victory lane to stand alongside race winner Curtis Turner. 

Christian ended that first season of NASCAR’s new top division by finishing thirteenth in points.   Her glory, however, proved short-lived as she rolled her car seven times in a late season NSCRA race at Lakewood Speedway and broke her back. The wreck scared her husband, her mother, and her young daughters as much as it did her.  They all encouraged her to quit.  She raced only one more time—“I just wanted to be sure I could”--in August 1950 at Hamburg, New York and finished fourteenth.

Louise Smith had the longest, and perhaps most colorful, career of any of the women who drove in NASCAR’s early days.  She competed in a total of eleven races in NASCAR’s top division—called Grand National after 1950--, three in the first season of strictly stock racing.  Her best finish in one of these races was a 16^th place in the 1949 Langhorne race and she finished generally near the bottom of the pack. 

One of the primary reasons she finished so poorly was that she wrecked so often.  Smith herself observed, “I needed wheels on top.  I’d a drove a lot better.”  As one writer succinctly put it, “Turning over was indeed a specialty of hers.” One of her most famous crashes came at Occoneechee Speedway in 1950.  Smith had gotten Curtis Turner to teach her how to do the powerslide.  She practiced with Turner until she was confident she could pull off the maneuver. 

Her powerslide, however, did not work as well when she tried to use it in qualifying.  According to Smith, “Man, when I hit that second turn, that tire blew and that thang never did straighten up.  It sailed off that bank down toward that river like a cannonball.  Hit three trees.  The radiator dove and I back-flopped against a tree.  They had to git me out with a torch.”  Most of the other drivers thought she was dead, but she came back to the track in time for the race—with plenty of cuts and bruises and several broken ribs. 

Smith fit in well with the rough crowd at early NASCAR races and could drink, cuss, and fight with the best of them. During, and after, her Grand National career ended in 1952, Smith regularly raced in modified races until she “got saved” in 1956 and quit going to the racetrack altogether.

In the early years of NASCAR, women drivers were a rare, but not an unusual feature at races.  In addition to Ethel Mobley, Sara Christian, and Louise Smith, other women, including Ann Slaasted, Ann Chester, and Ann Bunselmyer, competed in races in NASCAR’s top division in the 1950s.  

The women were there for one reason; as a gimmick to attract fans.  When the novelty wore off, the appearance money and other forms of encouragement dried up and NASCAR no longer welcomed the women.  Indeed, by the mid-1950s signs went up in the pit areas of most tracks reading “No Women allowed.”  The only woman one was likely to see in the infield of a racetrack—except for those occasions when promoters held “powder puff derbies”--was the beauty queen who presented the victor’s trophy.

Since the launching of the women’s movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there have been several attempts by women to make it in NASCAR’s top ranks.  Janet Guthrie tried to break into NASCAR’s Winston Cup division in the 1970s and raced in 33 Cup races but ultimately had very limited success.  In relatively recent years, attempts by Shawna Robinson, Patty Moise, Deborah Renshaw, Kelly Sutton, Erin Crocker, and Sarah Fisher have proven even less successful. 

Here’s hoping that Danica Patrick’s attempt at making it in NASCAR has more long range impact than earlier attempts and that Houston Lawing’s words from 1949 that “the woman auto racer is here to stay, like the atom bomb, rum and home hair waves” can finally prove prophetic.

 

*The term “powder-puff derby” was allegedly coined by comedian/humorist Will Rogers for long-distance air races for women.  The first such event was a 1929 race from Santa Monica, CA to Cleveland, OH featuring 19 aviatrixes, including Amelia Earhart.

 

Since its beginnings as a racetrack in 1947, Bowman Gray Stadium has been associated with some of the greatest names in auto racing and with some of the greatest racing in the sport’s history. 

No name looms larger in the track’s history than Alvin Hawkins who ran the city-owned track until his death, and whose family still operates it.  The Spartanburg, South Carolina native first appeared on the racing scene as a driver competing at the old Spartanburg Fairgrounds track in 1940.  Hawkins competed on the dirt tracks around the region in the early 1940s with some success battling such stock car racing legends as Lloyd Seay, Roy Hall, Fonty Flock, Smoky Purser, Joe Littlejohn, and Big Bill France.  He even raced in the famed Daytona beach/road race five times finishing sixth in an August, 1941 race. 

Along the way Hawkins formed close friendships with Spartanburg bootlegger, race driver, and race promoter Joe Littlejohn and with Big Bill France, founder/owner of NASCAR, that would shape his future career.  While he continued to compete sporadically as a racer after World War II, Hawkins increasingly became more involved in the sport as an official (as flagman/starter) and as a promoter.  In the late 1940s, Hawkins became an ever-present figure at Piedmont stock car races (particularly those promoted by France) sporting his trademark driving cap and puffing on a stogie.

In 1949, Hawkins partnered with France to begin weekly stock car races at Bowman Gray Stadium and moved his family to Winston-Salem every summer (as did Bill France for many years) until he relocated to the city permanently in 1954.  Throughout the 1950s and 60s Hawkins remained one of Bill France’s most trusted lieutenants as both an official and co-promoter and helped to transform NASCAR from a struggling entity to dominant status in American stock car racing. 

Hawkins’s promotion of both weekly racing and several annual Grand National races at Bowman Gray also helped to make the sport an entertainment staple in the Piedmont Triad region.  Indeed, Alvin Hawkins is one of those pioneering figures in southern stock car racing--who many NASCAR fans have probably never heard of --who deserves, at some point, to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.  (For more on folks you’ve never heard of who deserve to be inducted, stay tuned to the Real NASCAR blog.)

Beginning in 1958 and lasting until 1971, Bowman Gray became a regular stop on the NASCAR Grand National tour hosting a total of 29 races and as many as three a season.  The list of GN winners at the track reads like a who’s who of NASCAR royalty and include Lee Petty, Rex White, Glen Wood, Richard Petty, Jim Paschal, Junior Johnson, David Pearson, and Bobby Allison.

Surely the most memorable race in Bowman Gray’s storied Grand National history came on August 27, 1966.  The race featured, as so many early races at the stadium did, the outrageous antics of Curtis “Pops” Turner--sporting a silk three-piece suit--only recently returned to NASCAR after Big Bill France lifted his “lifetime” suspension for unionizing drivers in 1961.  Ironically, the race was the “Myers Brothers Memorial” to honor the two local racing legends who had both tragically died in the late 1950s.  The event drew a capacity crowd of over 15,000, most there to see Turner compete at the track once again.  "Pops" started in the fourth spot but soon became impatient to get up to leaders David Pearson and Richard Petty. 

Young Bobby Allison, making a splash in Grand National racing with three wins in only his first full season, was in the way, however.  Turner took his usual approach to such impediments, lived up to his nickname, and spun Allison out on lap eight and headed after the leaders.  Now down a lap, Allison took almost 100 laps to catch back up and came up on the now-leading Turner’s bumper to try to get his lap back and vie for the win.  At the same time as “Tiger” Tom Pistone battled Turner on the outside for the lead, Allison tried to take him on the inside.  At Bowman Gray two-wide is a stretch and three-wide is nigh on impossible.  Pistone hit the wall and Turner and Allison came together with Curtis getting the worst of the contact and spinning out.  Richard Petty took the lead in the midst of the mayhem as the caution flag came out.

The action, however, did not stop with the caution.  Turner had to pit for repairs and new tires and when he came back onto the track, he slowed considerably and lay in wait for Allison.  Allison anticipated that Turner was going to ram him so he took matters into his own hands, slammed into the side of the yellow Ford, and pinned Turner against the wall allowing the field to pass.  This set off a ten-lap demolition derby as each driver repeatedly crashed into the other until both their cars died on the frontstretch. 

It was a return to the old days of the bitter Myers Brothers/Turner rivalry at the stadium.  A near riot ensued as fans of both drivers climbed the fence and rushed the track.  Police intervened before anyone was hurt and wreckers cleared the cars from the track so the race could proceed.  Pearson won yet another battle with Petty, but few fans would remember the race winner.  NASCAR fined both drivers $100, and Triad racing fans had memories that would last a lifetime.

While Bowman Gray had its memorable Grand National races, it was the ongoing weekly racing that makes the place such a Triad institution.  Such racing at the stadium in the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s, not only featured local stars but Piedmont southern racing icons such as Glen Wood, Ned Jarrett, David Pearson, Bobby Isaac, Ralph Earnhardt, and Richard Childress—who got his start in racing as a kid selling peanuts in the stands.  In the 1970s, Bowman Gray began featuring modified races and regularly drew modified legends Richie Evans and Jerry Cook.

Attending a race at Bowman Gray Stadium is still a must for any hardcore racing fan.  The track averages more than 10,000 fans for its Saturday night shows and at $10--$1 for women on special “Ladies Nights”--is an entertainment bargain.  I’ll be back this season, but will never forget my first trip there two years ago.  I had spent the day at the dedication of an NC State historical marker to North Wilkesboro Speedway, whiled away part of the afternoon in the NWS stands listening to track caretaker Paul Call tell wonderful stories about the old days there, stopped off at Lexington Barbeque to eat a sandwich at the counter, got talked into taking one to- go by Rick Monk, and then ate my second sandwich of the evening in the stands at Bowman Gray as I enjoyed the pageant. 

Great atmosphere, great racing, and an unforgettable experience:  I recommend you try it.  

 

Next Week:  Danica-Mania and the History of Women in NASCAR

 

The premier of the reality show “The Madhouse” on the History Channel on Sunday, January 10 brought needed attention to one of the great auto racing venues in American history; Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  While the series highlights the current Saturday night show—and from personal experience it’s a great show—it is worth looking back at the history of this venerable facility and to the wonderful entertainment it has provided to denizens of the Piedmont Triad since 1947.

The 1/5: mile paved racetrack around the football field at Bowman Gray was originally built by New York promoter Lew Franco for weekly Friday night midget car races on Franco’s Dixie Circuit.  The first race was held on June 6, 1947, and the midget races drew solid crowds throughout the summer season.  Midget racing continued at Bowman Gray throughout 1948, but by the end of the season, Franco and the Dixie Circuit had pulled out leaving behind an unpaid paving bill.

NASCAR founder Big Bill France saw the vacancy at Bowman Gray as an opportunity for his growing empire of tracks and promotions in the Piedmont South.  In early 1949, he and former Spartanburg, South Carolina stock car racer—now NASCAR flagman—Alvin Hawkins signed a lease to hold weekly Wednesday night stock car races and accepted responsibility for the unpaid paving bill.  While France has received a lot of credit for putting stock car racing and NASCAR on the map, one of his greatest innovations as a promoter was starting weekly stock car races at Bowman Gray.  While many auto racing experts scoffed at the notion that stock car racing could support weekly shows, the success of Bowman Gray soon made local weekly stock car races an entertainment staple throughout the region.

Under Hawkins’s astute management, stock car races at Bowman Gray became an immediate local sensation.  France and Hawkins benefitted from having some of the greatest racers of the day compete in their early races including the “Mad” Flocks, Bob, Fonty, and Tim; Curtis Turner; and Red Byron.  The Bowman Gray races also produced local stars, particularly Billy and Bobby Myers.  By June, 1949, the promoters changed the weekly races to Saturday night, where they remain to this day.

Later in 1949, France and Hawkins made another important innovation: races for amateur drivers, christened as “sportsman” races.  For the August 16 race, the promoters advertised a pair of 25-lap races for non-professional drivers, in cars built in 1932 or later “that must not have a value of $600.”  The races attracted a record crowd of over 8000 fans and a field of thirty-seven local drivers.  As Humpy Wheeler once observed, if you have local drivers, “for every race car, at least thirty people were gonna come to the track to see it race.  Fifteen to see it be successful ‘cause they’re relatives and fifteen to see the guy get beat.”  Sportsman races soon spread along with weekly racing and produced a new farm system for the sport.  While many early stock car drivers had their first high-speed driving experience behind the wheel of a late 1930s Ford V-8 hauling liquor on a winding mountains road, after 1949, most of the top drivers—like David Pearson, Ned Jarrett, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, and Bobby Isaac—came out of the sportsman ranks. 

The thing that really packed the fans into Bowman Gray in the early 1950s and turned it into such a legendary venue, however, was the intense rivalry between former bootlegger, and current timberman, playboy, and NASCAR Grand National star Curtis “Pops” Turner of Christiansburg, Virginia, and local mechanics Billy and Bobby Myers.  The working-class Myers brothers—who owned their own race cars and worked on them themselves--regularly clashed with Turner—who always drove for someone else and was going to win, wreck, or blow up--on and off the track and any event that involved the three was bound to produce exciting racing and probably a fight (or fights) afterward. 

Perhaps the most famous incident occurred when Turner administered on of his legendary “pops” to Bobby Myers’s rear bumper and sent him flying into the infield where his car hit a wall taking him out of the race.  After the race Myers headed for Turner—in the time-honored manner of stock car driver fights—with tire iron in hand.  Turner, sitting on top of his Cadillac, saw Bobby coming, pointed a .38 pistol at him, and asked his potential assailant, “Bobby, what are you planning on doing with that?”  To which Myers responded, “Curtis, I’m just looking for a place to put it down.”

As you watch “The Madhouse” remember that, while much of what you see may be the product of reality show hype and crafty editing, at least a part of what you see grows out of a proud tradition going back to 1947.  Indeed, one of the neater features of “The Madhouse” is that two of the featured drivers are Burt and Jason Myers, the grandsons of Bowman Gray legend Billy Myers.

Come back next week for Part II and more Curtis Turner shenanigans at Bowman Gray next week.