I was so curious to see how everything would pan out at the inaugural NASCAR race at Kentucky Speedway.  I was filled with questions; "What does it mean when a track is chosen to host a NASCAR Cup race? Where does it situate that track in the history of the sport?" and so on.

As an historian, I have examples everywhere of first races at tracks. I can look at the first race at Martinsville, where everyone went home covered head to toe in red clay dust. I can look at Daytona International or Talladega Superspeedway, where drivers were scared to pieces by the impossible steep banking that climbed high above them. There’s Darlington Raceway, a beauty unlike any driver had ever seen, black asphalt glistening in the hot South Carolina sun.

There are modern examples as well. Auto Club Speedway which brought racing back to Southern California and Infineon Raceway, which replaced the storied Riverside International as the west coast road course. There are even a good handful of tracks which have only ever hosted one race.

The race at Kentucky Speedway opened up the very limited opportunity of hosting a race to a relatively untested track. Yes, Nationwide has run there. And certainly, the drivers have run there for testing in various capacities. But this past weekend was the true test of the Speedway. The first date jitters had to be quelled, the flirting was over with. It was time for NASCAR and Kentucky Speedway to get together and see if sparks would fly.

Continue reading this post »

Hi friends and race fans! I have been on hiatus for the last few months. I went to Daytona and came home to some family business that needed tending. But as the season passes, so do the things that keep us busy and it is time to come on back to you all and talk racing.

I had a dream the other night that NASCAR rebanked and repaved Talladega into a 1.5 miler. On my twitter feed, I called it as it was, something of a nightmare that NASCAR would turn one of its most storied tracks into one heck of a cookie cutter track. I did get some interesting feedback. I was told that there was in fact no such thing as  a "cookie cutter race track" that all tracks maintain a personality of their own. While there is some argument to that, there is also the other side too. Really, one 1.5 mile D shaped flat-ish track is so much like all the others, no matter what state it might be in. All that changes is the time the race starts.

Luckily, we have tracks that stand out in our collective consciousness as race fans. And by that, I mean the collective conscious that expands beyond the NASCAR nation. Talladega is one such track. There is no other track, not even Daytona, that is more well known outside of our close family. You can probably get a non-race fan to name Talladega as a race track, even if they couldn't name a single stock car driver.

Continue reading this post »

(Manager's note:  Based on the excitement of seeing the Wood Brothers in victory lane again at the Daytona 500 we thought you might want to see what our resident NASCAR historian, Melissa Bleier had to say about the Wood Brothers back in April of 2010 - Bob)

This weekend, NASCAR stops at one of the few short tracks on our circuit. Richmond International Raceway is a ¾ mile track set on top of what used to be a half mile dirt track at the Virginia State Fairgrounds. Rather than delve into the history of the track today, I thought that we would stop over and visit one of the most famous families in racing who are from just down the road in Stuart, Virginia.

The Wood Brothers still field the number 21 Ford, driven by Awesome Bill from Dawsonville Elliot (one of my personal favorite drivers and a gentleman who always smiles if I holler "Hey Awesome Bill!" when I see him in the garages.).  Glen and Leonard Wood changed the way stock car races were run and more importantly how they were won. The modern pit stop is the direct result of the Wood Brothers teams. Pit stops, while never leisurely, drivers often would turn their cars off and take a stretch. It was a smoke em if you got em kind of break, while the pit crew screwed off and on the gas caps; raised and lowered the car with hand pump jacks and attended to whatever adjustments needed to take place. We all know how distressing it is when our driver is stuck in the pits for more than fifteen seconds. Can you imagine if he climbed out for a smoke break!? It was the racing smarts of Glen and Leonard Wood that made pit road what it is today.

Continue reading this post »

I'm here in Daytona. Each year, this is my pilgrimage. I spend a whole week out here. The first few days of the week, I spend entrenched in the archives. It seems strange to come out here and not get to the track right away, I know. But as a historian, there is no place that I would rather be. 

There isn't anything at all that is better than listening to the people who made our sport share their own history. People know that Tiger Tom Pistone was afraid he was going to drown in the lake at Daytona, but it is another thing altogether to hear him talk about his breathing apparatus and his life jacket. Straight from the horses mouth!

The other Must Do on my list for Daytona is attending the Living Legends of Auto Racing Award Banquet. Another chance to see and meet folks who made brought our sport from the fields of the South into the world renowned sport that it is today. I know that there are a lot of stories out there this week on Daytona, and the history of the track and the legacy of Dale Earnhardt.  I am always grateful when the history of our sport come a little but more into the spot light. I do my part and hope that perhaps the things that I write about encourage other people to go dig a little bit more into the history of the sport.

As for me, I try to never stop discovering new stories. For example, I get to share with you all a "Little Bit Right, Little Bit Wrong" story. Tonight, I ran into the daughter of Smokey Yunick. I finally got to inquire about the building still standing on the lot at the site of the Best Damn Garage. It isn't that I don't know that some of the buildings were lost, but I wanted to know for sure about the one that was still there. Turns out, it was the office and the truck shop. The Garage itself was indeed lost to demolition.So there you go! You never know, but until I asked, I was (and you, dear reader, I suppose) were stuck in the "what if" part of knowing. 

The best thing about being a historian isn't being Right, or knowing more than the guy next to you, it is that you are always learning. The best thing about being a NASCAR historian is sometimes, the very guy who made that history, can tell you the story. 

Hey all! 

Welcome to 2011! January has been a rocky month for me, but we are getting awfully close to the start of our season. Time to jump back on the horse. Horsepower, that is. 

We've all been waiting to hear what NASCAR has in store for us for the 2011 season points system. This evening, Brian France held a press conference to fill us in on the details of a simplified and more competitive points system. I had to follow the updates via social media and the internet since out here on the West Coast, I was stuck at work. There is some great commentary, both positive and negative out there. I'm excited for it. I think change (some change. NASCAR, can we have Rockingham back, please?) is good. Tonight, I set out to write a little bit about the history of NASCAR's points systems. I started doing my research and can really sum it up like this: It has never made a whole lot of sense. 

There. That about covers it. There were different points granted for different types of tracks. Points were awarded based on the purse for each track or for each lap completed. There were different points awarded for top finishers- with some of the field getting no points at all. There was, at one point, four different rule changes regarding the points system in eight years. 

You could say these systems are nutty, but they were trying their best. A quick glance at NASCAR.com's NASCAR101 doesn't show a much better set up for the last three decades. Our most recent points system was created in 1975 by a fellow by the name of Rob Latford. A historian and a statistician, he created a system that would offer uniform points to drivers relative to how they finished up a race. 

Seems simple, sort of. But for every single one of us who have tried to explain the points system to a new fan... well... Let's just say my least favorite questions are "How do the points work?" and "Can you explain to me again how the qualifying for the Daytona 500 works?" 

So, 35 years later. Here we go again! This one actually seems simple enough to explain. Phew! 

Let's see. 1975? 35 years ago. What was going on? In 1975 Dale Earnhardt first intimidated the field. Well, he finished 22nd in the one race he ran. But there he was at Charlotte Motor Speedway, driving the #8 Dodge. And heck, we all know what was coming. Richard Petty won his 6th Championship. Marty Robbins, country western star, raced in two races that year. Can you imagine Garth Brooks out in a car? 

1975 not only brought a uniform approach to the points but it also brought a more balanced field. All engines were required to be the same size and the conflicts that had been caused by the introduction of the Hemi engines had been settled. Engine sizes were restricted and Chevrolet was a competitive factor again. Of course, the teams no longer had direct factory support, so the cost of running a team was escalating each year. Holman-Moody, Banjo Mathews, Cotton Owens and Ray Fox all shut down their teams. Interestingly, in an effort to hep teams survive, Goodyear awarded tires to teams based on their qualifying efforts. 

This week, we also heard from Fox Sports Chairman, David Hill who said that the races should be shorter to better fit television ratings. In 1975, ABC expanded their NASCAR coverage to include live broadcasts of the Daytona 500 and the Atlanta 500 and delayed broadcasts of the Mason-Dixon 500 (Dover), the Firecracker 400 and the Southern 500. CBS would air the Winston 500 (Talldega) and the World 600 (Charlotte) a week after they ran the races. CBS also aired the Champion Spark Plug 400 (Michigan) and the Dixie 500 (Atlanta). A total of ten races were aired on television. The fact that television was willing to expand their coverage so rapidly was a reflection on the growing awareness and interest in the sport. Something that I sort of think that the tv execs might be missing today. 

So here we go kids! We only have about two more weeks to go. I for one, can't wait, no matter how many points they give em. 

Red Byron was racing from the day he owned his first car at ten years old, the story goes that he actually drove his first car at five. Being ten years old didn't stop him from racing and neither, years later, did a war injury that required his foot to be literally strapped to the pedals. Born in Alabama, Byron grew up behind one wheel or another, eventually becoming one of the best modified drivers around. He raced in NASCAR before it was NASCAR. Before World War II, the loosely organized but growing world of American automobile racing drew men in from the back field tracks to compete against other wheelers. 

Fonty Flock was the first National Championship Stock Car Circuit champion in 1947 but by 1948, Byron overtook him and was crowned champion. To give you some perspective, for winning that Cup Season, he made $1250.00. Bill France first organized modified competitions and simply dabbled in stock car races. However, the overwhelming popularity of the stock car races brought us to the very beginnings of our sport. Byron followed right along. Originally a modified champion, Byron refocused his efforts on stock car racing and was almost an instant success.

Red was not the first NASCAR champion, but he was the first Strictly Stock Champion. His second championship in 1949 was won with two first place finishes and a 117.5 point lead over Lee Petty. You'd probably recognize Red if given have the chance, the photo of him covered head to toe in red dirt from Martinsville Speedway is always kicking around. His glasses hide his eyes and he lounges in the seat of his car, looking just about as tired as a man can get. 

Red Byron is one of those men who probably weren't meant to do anything other than race. As I mentioned, his story starts out with him behind the wheel at 5. Byron fought in WWII; he joined the US Army Air Force and was a B-24 bomber pilot. He flew more than 50 missions and was shot down during a mission over the Aleutian Islands. His leg was so badly damaged that the doctors wanted to amputate it. Knowing that he would never race again if they did, he refused to let them. Probably one of the most determined men in NASCAR, he returned to racing in 1946. 

Red had his mechanic, Red Vogt (another legend in NASCAR) build him a special brace which fixed his foot to the clutch. That's the foot he raced with to become NASCAR's first stock champion. His racing career lasted until 1951, his health forced him to move into engine development and team running. Byron had, officially, a very short NASCAR career. But his years of racing make him truly one of the great racers. 

Well. Here we are! The dreaded off season. 

While trying not to obsessively count the days until the 500, I was trying to think of what to write about for my weekly piece here. I read in the news lately that the Hall of Fame is having a little bit of a tough time reaching attendance goals this first year. I really believe that given time, the Hall will increase in popularity and really start to pull in the race fans who are visiting Charlotte, or heck even any old part of North Carolina.  Or South Carolina. Or Virginia. Hey! Turns out there is some great racing around there!

I was reading the annoucement for the 2011 Inductees for the Hall and I thought that I would spend the off weeks and some of the other weeks during the season, writing up a bit for the fellows who didn't make it in this year. They are some incredibly deserving men, let me tell you. I have been lucky enough to meet a few and was even more staggeringly lucky to get to have lunch with Bud Moore. A Spartanburg lunch I will never forget.

I have already touched on a couple of them, but I thought a good story or two might be good to keep us warm during thr chilly winter months. Here's the list of nominees:

Anyone interested in hearing about anyone in particular right of the bat? If not, I think that I will start off next week with Red Byron. He's one of my favorites. 

Well. That's it for NASCAR in 2010. The stickers on the back of the truck are weather worn and the tailgate gear has to go back to the garage. Our modern season is so much shorter than it once was. True, NASCAR's first season only had eight races but some seasons ran for as many as 62 races! Can you imagine? A race every three days or so? 

It was the introduction of RJ Reynolds and the sponsorship of the entire NASCAR series that brought the number of races down to a more manageable 30 races a season. This meant of course, that a large number of tracks were cut from the season. In 1970, races were held at 48 tracks, including three dirt courses. 1971 did not see a change in the number of races, but there were no longer NASCAR Cup level races at any dirt tracks. NASCAR, under the direction of RJ Reynolds shortened the racing season to 31 races in 1972. The number of races remained fairly consistent, dropping to 28 and settling in at 30.

This allowed RJ Reynolds to not only establish a stronger base for NASCAR and the racing season but allowed them to make much needed improvements at NASCAR sanctioned tracks. We've all used the porta-johns at the race tracks, but can you imagine if that was the only facility available? The sponsorship brought plumbing, water and other amenities to tracks in the circuit.

RJ Reynolds also created one of the most memorable branding elements to our sport. Today, NASCAR is covered in yellow, but RJ Reynolds created the iconic red and white paint scheme that lingers on at some of the older (reborn, hooray!) tracks like North Wilkesboro and is celebrated at our heritage tracks like Darlington. Today, the NASCAR tracks are individual entities, though they are owned, for the most part, by one of two speedway organizations. There is no real cohesion to the tracks, no identifying mark that ties them all together. Except, of course, for 40 odd cars on a paved oval and thousands of fans.

Even though the NASCAR season is only 36 races, it still seems short to me! Though the phrase gets tossed about a little too often, I think that we actually saw history made this year. No matter what you think about him, I think that Johnson is the Richard Petty of our era. Yes, not as Everyman hero, and certainly not in line for the throne..no one will ever unseat The King; but he is indeed a legend maker in our sport. Johnson and Knaus have created something of an unstoppable force in NASCAR. It is as if the ghosts of the best engineers sit at the table with Knaus and the drivers tuck Johnson in at night. Who knows what the future drivers will bring to the track, but Johnson has earned his (Darlington) stripes along with the greatest drivers in our sport. 

More importantly, in 2010 we were reassured that we would not lose our most historic and therefore our most precious heritage track, Martinsville. The promise that the track would retain two dates out of a season which has too few short track races was fantastic news. To me, this was the most important thing that happened all year! 

Here's to a great season, I can't wait for 2011!

Well here we are. The end of the NASCAR season. This is the last weekend we are booked with three races to watch. Thanksgiving and Christmas come next ... unless you are already counting the days until the 2011 Daytona 500.

Eighty-eight, by the way.

We start and end the NASCAR season in Florida. The birthplace of speed. Miami-Homestead is a fairly new addition to our circuit, so shall we take a look at some of the other history of the Sunshine State?

If you go to Daytona, do take the time to go to the beach where they used to run. You can see the straightaway and imagine the cars. Ignore the hotels and that the North turn no longer has signs warning folks, "Danger! Rattlesnakes!" There weren't any, really. It was just Big Bill France trying to keep the race fans from getting too close to the automobiles ripping around the turns.

Continue reading this post »

Well! The race at Texas sure turned out to be something else, didn't it. With the Golden Boy and the Mayor going at each other and Kyle's $25,000, three laps down, one finger wave, Sunday turned out to be a pretty interesting event! Not that it isn't anyhow, with how close the Chase is, but we got one heck of a show of, shall we say "personality" this past weekend.

There are lots of folks in NASCAR's history that have had more than their share of personality. I don't mean that in a bad way, not one little bit. Bad tempers, bad mouths, smart mouths and bad attitudes have colored NASCAR as much as the grace and dignity of drivers like Richard Petty. In the earliest days of NASCAR, drivers like Lee Petty were ruthless but still managed to maintain a semblance of grace about them.  Stories of drivers going after one another with crowbars, or whatever else might be handy and heftable around a track are in most NASCAR biographies.  Later on, taking a cue from the reputations which grew around them, drivers like Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt backed up their "personality" with actions both on and off the track.  

It was rumored that Big Bill France carried a pistol with him where ever he went. Though that might have been a necessity in the rough and tumble days of NASCAR, one can only assume that the notion that the man might just snap might have been enough to keep some of the drivers in line. 

Drivers settling their disputes with fists isn't all that new either. Again, flipping through most NASCAR history books, one can usually find several examples, either in picture or story. The first NASCAR race televised flag to flag ended with maybe the most famous fist fight in NASCAR history. The picture of the Allisons and Cale Yarborough fighting at the 1979 Daytona 500 is one of the most iconic images in our sport. 

The drivers in NASCAR's history had personality in spades. I am excited that over the last season and a half, our modern era drivers have been encouraged to get on back to being real NASCAR drivers. Sometimes tempers don't make for the smartest decisions, but passion, personality and a fighting side, even on the Golden Boy, Jeff Gordon makes for a modern NASCAR that is more like our much sought after "good old days" of stock car racing.

Maybe because Richard Petty Motorsports has been in the news so much, I was thinking about car colors, paint schemes and what they represent for drivers. Throughout NASCAR's history, the paint scheme of a car said a lot about the driver, the sport and the car. They still do. Think about the shock when the Budweiser colors were suddenly going round the track with the 9 instead of the 8.

I don't even have to go into what the black Number 3 means, right? Loads of folks are familiar with the story behind the Petty Blue colors. Not enough blue, not enough white leads to one heck of a legendary color. Race fans remember Jeff Gordon and his rainbow Dupont Chevy. Pretty flashy for NASCAR!

But what about some of the other cars? The orange Tide #17 driven by Darrell Waltrip was an interesting note in NASCAR history. Tide isn't a brand associated with motors, cars, motorsports, or hell, even men. Who does the laundry? That's right, women. Yes, yes. I know. Please don't use that sentence to roll out the attacks on me about who does the laundry. I'm sure you all wash your own socks. With Tide, right?

A NASCAR team deciding to run a laundry detergent as a sponsor knew that there were women in the stands, maybe women who needed a car to pull for. It was a smart idea and one hell of a car. Waltrip won the Daytona 500 in that car. 

In 2008, Dale Junior ran a throwback scheme to one of the neatest cars I have ever heard of. Buddy Baker drove the Gray Ghost to victory in the 1980 Daytona 500. Baker's car (and Earnhardt's revival of it) was a silver and gray that blended into the track. The other drivers felt that the car held an unfair advantage, since it seemed to appear out of nowhere. Baker was forced to put reflectors on the car, to warn the other drivers he was coming on through.

Another great example is Carl Kiekhaefer. NASCAR's first multi-car team owner, Kiekhaefer was also the first to paint a sponsor on the side of the car. Well, maybe not the first, but the first to use a national sponsor outside of the automotive industry. His cars ran Mercury Outboard Motors as their sponsor. Kiekhaefer is an interesting character, by the way. A real kettle of fish in NASCAR history.

Really, one of the best things about the car paint schemes is that they mark races and drivers. Sit down with an old NASCAR driver and he can tell you which car took him to the finish line and which car took him home early (Or not at all). Folks who have been going to races for years can remember cars and colors and numbers, these are the marks of the sport. How about you folks? Anyone have a special paint scheme that they admired the most or remember the best? 

Me? I wish I could have seen the original Gray Ghost run. I loved the revival scheme so much and the story behind it. Who would think that a stock car could sneak up on anyone?

So? Any favorites? And why?

What can I say about Charlotte. It is here, as I have said before that all Race Fans have a home track. Charlotte is where it all comes back around. And, the drivers don't go in circles, but they all come back to that same start/finish line. Charlotte hosted the first Strictly Stock race in 1949; it carries two races each year as well as one of the best races of the season, the All Star race; it is the place where almost all of the teams come home to roost, it is the home of new NASCAR Hall of Fame. 

Charlotte, North Carolina is the spiritual and historic home, both, of all those involved in NASCAR. 

And really, it is all of North Carolina. There, we have some of the best (though no longer on the schedule) tracks in NASCAR. The Rock is legendary. North Wilkesboro is both legend and historic and is truly one of the foundation tracks of our sport. Luckily, both tracks have been saved by those who have a passion for racing that expands beyond television numbers and "realignment" woes. Bowman-Gray is the stock car racing hero of the History Channel. (My word, if you have never seen a race at Bowman-Gray, you're life is sadly missing something. At least watch Mad House!) You can still visit Occoneechee, a heck of a dirt track closed down by local teetotalers. It is now one of the most amazing walking paths. (Clicky! Visit! Occoneechee)

Down the road from the Queen City, in shade tree garages and on old dirt tracks legendary drivers were born and raised. And, of course raised hell. Well, most of them, with a hat tip to the Pettys.

So this week, instead of statistics and instead of track histories, let's all settle in for some good old Saturday Night racing in Charlotte, North Carolina. I know we're all at our home track, no matter what state our couches are actually in. 

Funny how no one associates NASCAR with California. 

Yes. We (and I say we, your lovely hostess, NASCAR history aficionado, is out here in the Golden West) out here on the left coast are often left out of NASCAR history. California is a weird blip on the NASCAR modern map. One road course and (now) one oval race each season. 

Sears Point ahem, "Infineon" has the distinction of being the first NASCAR race I ever attended and Fontana's first races were my second. But what is really interesting about California, is that NASCAR was out here by 1951. That is pretty impressive. 

In 1951, three California race tracks debuted on the NASCAR schedule. Interestingly enough, one of the tracks was on the site where the Oakland Raiders now play. The Oakland Stadium was a 5/8ths and then a 1/4 mile paved oval. The track was torn down in 1955. Two quirky facts about this track that caught my eye in my "History of the American Speedway". The first fact notes that Oakland Stadium was perhaps the first track with a concrete crash barrier. The very first Safer Barrier, it would seem. And the second fact mentions that the last race at the track ran with dirt corners ...  I'm super curious now and I think that I know who I can ask. I will get back to you!

Where else did NASCAR run in California?

Continue reading this post »

These past two weeks, NASCAR had been buzzing with accusations, counter-accusations, explanations and more official inspections than ever. Or at least it seems like it, doesn’t it? The appeal of the #33 was denied by the National Stock Car Racing Commission and RCR and Bowyer are left in the same place that many drivers have over the years. NASCAR’s decisions stand more often than not. Their word is law. This piece, however is not about whether or not Bowyer’s car had one innovation too many, this is racing after all. They’re all an innovation or two away from "stock" cars.

There are many well known sayings about cheating in NASCAR. Quips like "If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying," come easily to mind. Famous tales of racing innovation and legends of stock cars have grown as much from the garages as from the track itself. In 1949 at the first Strictly Stock race sanctioned by NASCAR, more than 13,000 people watched Glenn Dunnaway take a borrowed Ford through the dirt turns and beat an impressive field including Jim Roper, two of the Flock Brothers, the fearless female racer Sara Christian and Lee Petty.[i]  Dunnaway collected $2,000 in prize money and the dubious honor of being the first driver ever disqualified for cheating in a NASCAR race.

Continue reading this post »

Today I was looking over the information on Richmond and thinking about what an interesting race track it is. It started out as a fairground dirt track known as the Atlantic Rural Exposition Fairgrounds. Several name changes and a few years later, they paved the track; perhaps they were influenced by Martinsville, which had paved their dirt track almost ten years earlier.

Once paved, the track measured .625 miles. It stayed that way for all of one race in 1968. By 1969, the track had been reconfigured to measure .542 miles. It kept this measurement until 1988 when the track once again was redesigned to the familiar D shape 3/4 mile track. As a fan, I love the racing here, I think that it is one of the best tracks in our season. As a historian, I love it that Richmond is a great example of a track which has managed to grow and yet maintain a unique personality. It is an awesome modern connection to NASCAR's history and past. The track has changed a lot, but the racing has always been good. 

My first foray into looking for something to write about took me (naturally) to the 1986 Miller High Life 400 finish, with Waltrip and Earnhardt fighting it out. I went to the good ol' You-Tube to see the footage. Watching one video of the finish led me to the side bar and I really got bogged down watching videos of racing from the early 1980s! 

I wasn't a fan then, though I wish like crazy I was. I started thinking about how lucky we are as race fans to have an accessible history. I didn't watch that race in 1986, but I can watch now. There is no way that I would have ever been able to see a race in 1965, but thanks to uploaded clips, I can! And let me tell you, if you have never looked, there are a ton.

Our history is accessible everyday in so many different ways. The internet and You-Tube are great (and obvious) resources; we have the brand spanking new NASCAR Hall of Fame, we have the Darlington Raceway Museum (The Joe Weatherly Stock Car Museum), the marble markers at Martinsville Speedway, the named grandstands and little museums at every track, and maybe most importantly the local tracks that continue racing traditions at a hometown level.

We can't all head over to the ISC Archives in Daytona Beach whenever we want but we have a wealth of history at our fingertips. If you haven't yet, do yourself a favor, spend some time watching historic racing clips over on You-tube. If you can, when you go to our heritage race tracks, take some time to walk through their racing displays and museums. Visit the Hall of Fame and definitely go to the museum at Darlington. Remember that the history of NASCAR is out there waiting for you!

Hi folks!
These last two weeks have been a madhouse (sadly, not Bowman-Gray) for me. I got called to Portland, Oregon for a consulting gig last week and then while I was there I got a call from a lovely lady named Sheryl who is the founder of  the Helle Nice Foundation. Helle Nice was a French female race car driver in the 1930's who came over and hit a circuit of race tracks. The Foundation found me and needed emergency research on the tracks that she had raced at during her stay in the good old United States. They were almost all fairground dirt tracks, with a board track thrown in there too. 

My knowledge of the European traditions that inspired early American racing is more attuned to the beginnings of stock car traditions, but I do know my tracks and was able to help out. Before I write my little piece for tonight, I want to give you a few websites. Here is the Helle Nice Foundation; they are laying a memorial marker at Helle's unmarked grave this weekend in France. And boy, friends, do I wish I could go too! 

Here are some of the folks that helped me out a whole bunch with last minute research. They have some great forums to dig through! Go say hi! 3WidePIctureVault  and the folks over at LocalRaceChat  Actually, I have loads of links to people if anyone is interested. 

Let's talk a little bit about Georgia and a little bit of a different kind of heritage, shall we?

Continue reading this post »

With the addition of Kentucky Speedway to the 2011 NASCAR schedule, Kentucky is once has a presence in the NASCAR Cup Series. The last time that NASCAR held a Cup race in Kentucky, it was 1954. 

I don't have much to say about another 1.5 D shaped track being added to NASCAR. The racing here seems like it will be lots of fun, but the track was built in 2000. So how about we take a peek at the last time NASCAR wandered through the Bluegrass State.  1954 had some interesting developments in NASCAR both on and off the track. The Pure Oil, Co. manufactured and sold a new tire specifically for stock car racing. Until then, drivers were using the same tires that were used on every day cars. Safety measures were being made, even in the earliest years of NASCAR.

1954 also saw the introduction of specialized helmets which were designed specifically to protect the drivers from concussive forces. Along with safety measures designed to protect drivers from impact injuries, a fire-proof overall was introduced and became a common feature in the garages. While the safety features of stock cars in the 1950s may seem laughable when compared to the high tech modern safety developments, the very fact that NASCAR, as a sport, was influencing safety design and innovation is extraordinarily impressive. 

Even this early on in American popular culture, NASCAR had a television presence. In 1952, 1.4 Million Americans had a television set. (That information is sourced from Wikipedia. That number may or may not be correct, but it is probably close) Even in this early market, stock car racing had a foothold. Three television programs featured stock car racing. New York City broadcast a show called Wire Wheels, Desert Dirt featured racing news and aired out of Phoenix, Arizona, and Autorama broadcast out of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Perhaps these are not the television markets that one would expect to feature stock car racing news, but I think that it speaks to the nationwide interest and growing national presence of NASCAR.

Continue reading this post »

I noticed today that NASCAR.com has a very thorough article up on the history of Watkins Glen. I highly recommend heading over there and reading it. Of course, that leaves me with a little less to write about so I thought I would take a glance at one of NASCAR's bookend years for Watkins Glen. There is a 20 year break in racing for NASCAR at the Glen. From 1965 until 1986 there were no races held at the track. So let us take a peek at 1965

In 1965, Marvin Panch won the last race at Watkins Glen and Ned Jarrett took home the championship. Fords dominated the tracks, but not for the reason that you might think. NASCAR, in order to address dangerous racing conditions, had limited the size of the engines which could be used in the cars. This mostly impacted the Chrysler Hemi engine, forcing the teams to take a serious step backwards from their engine advancements. Chrysler boycotted the 1965 season; they felt that the new regulation was "not consistant with racing's tradition of bringing the best and newest engineering equipment to the race track."

And indeed, it probably wasn't. However, it did force the factory teams to reevaluate the ways in which they created speed and power. Even Smokey thought that it would only hurt Chrysler at first, and not permanently. At the same time, Chevrolet had still not backed down from the No Racing policy. It seemed like after 1964's fast, exciting (and fatal) season, 1965 might turn out to be a snoozer. It wasn't of course, this is NASCAR after all. 

An aside: There is an awesome photo in my "Bible" of Richard Petty in a Plymouth Barracuda, "43/jr. OUTLAWED" is painted across the side. I do wish that you all would go and get a copy of any of Greg Fielden's NASCAR History books. You don't know what you're missing! 

The United States Auto Club, a rival sanctioning body, tried to lure drivers as well as factory backed teams by declaring that all cars and engines were welcome on their tracks. Considering that NASCAR had just reinstated Curtis Turner as a driver after four years of being banned from racing, no drivers were even tempted. Though Turner was originally banned "for life" Big Bill most likely thought that it would be an excellent diversion from the difficulties with the manufacturers if they brought back one of racing's brightest stars.  

One last little tidbit about 1965. On Halloween of that year, NASCAR visited for the first time one of the best race tracks there is: North Carolina Motor Speedway, better known as The Rock hosted its first race. I love that track. Andy Hillenburg is a true racing hero for bringing her back to us. Go see a race there! 

http://www.rockinghamracewaypark.com/

Speaking of New York (were we?) I'll be there next week. Maybe before I go, I'll put together a snapshot of Rockingham for you. That sounds fun, doesn't it?

This week there has been some interesting stories about NASCAR drivers receiving fines from NASCAR for open criticism. The new 'have at it boys" attitude does not apparently extend to the sport itself. Interestingly enough, one of the loudest critics of the sport was Smokey Yunick. He was stubbornly vocal especially in the later years of his career when he felt that NASCAR was compromising the safety of the drivers for the spectacle of the sport. He was also fairly critical of Big Bill France, "Billy" France, and any number of men, teams and organizations affiliated with NASCAR.

Smokey was not a man to lay down and let anyone walk all over him. The full extent of his ability to engineer a car beyond what NASCAR and the big manufacturers of the day saw as top of the line will probably never be completely known. Much of his career in NASCAR can be summed up with this quote from The Best Damn Garage : "Was this car a 'cheater' Smokey? You're goddam rite (sic) it was...but not by NASCAR's pulbished rule book for 1968." (271)

I won't give away all the stories that his autobiography has to share. It is an honest and angry exploration of the sport. Smokey doesn't sugar coat anything, the simplified and familiar stories that we all know come to light a little differently. He is also very honest about his own "innovations"in the sport. He really did use an inflated basketball inside a gas tank to make it seem like he was running a smaller tank than he was. Smokey really did scale a car down to 7/8ths the size it should have been. He was also well known for swapping parts, changing engine elements and restructuring entire engine systems, just because NASCAR's rule book didn't say he couldn't.

My favorite story is also fairly well known. I think that you just can't beat driving away from NASCAR inspection after they have confiscated the gas tank. Smokey is the reason that today's NASCAR inspection has frame templates to measure the give and take that each team is looking to use in the rule book. NASCAR's inspection process added "secret marks" and assigned specific parts to each team because of Smokey's ability to find the golden loophole.

I wonder if NASCAR will have the guts (after scanning The Best Damn Garage, I'm really tempted to say "the cajones") to someday add Smokey to the Hall of Fame roster. I don't think they will. There is no way in my little column that I can really show you what an impact Smokey has had on NASCAR. I am certain that if NASCAR were to acknowledge that Smokey Yunick should be included in the Hall of Fame, they would have to acknowledge that there was someone getting the best of them, every single race until 1970, when Smokey retired.

The Best Damn Garage in Time; My Life and Adventures by Smokey Yunick is one of the best histories of NASCAR I have ever read. Skip NASCAR for Dummies and some of the sugar coated histories out there and get to the real history of stock car racing. You won't be disappointed.

Part 1:

The second group of nominees were announced for the NASCAR Hall of Fame and I was asked what I thought about Smokey Yunick not being on that list.  I am more than certain that it will be quite some time before Smokey graces a pillar in the Hall of Fame. Smokey Yunick, who wrote his sort-of edited, hard nosed, cuss filled autobiography at 75 (and a half) and was a hard nosed, brilliant, amazing engineer before car builders were called anything more than mechanics. He also was a fighter pilot, an inventor,  ... the list just goes on, really.  Smokey won’t admit that he was a cheater, and to be fair, he might honestly be the whole definition of “it ain’t cheating unless they catch you” or,  "it ain’t cheating until you’ve done it, NASCAR gets mad at you, and by the next race it is in the rule book".  Most of the tech inspection processes that you’ll see today are directly related to Smokey’s attempts to “get around” what NASCAR felt stock meant.  

Smokey was introduced, formally, into NASCAR racing when Marshall Teague offered him $200.00 to build an engine for Herb Thomas’ Hudson.  Smokey worked with Herb Thomas from 1951 through 1954.  He went on to engineer cars for some of the best drivers in NASCAR history like my favourite, Fireball Roberts.  Smokey left NASCAR in 1970, for a variety of reasons, including the fact that he felt NASCAR was disregarding the safety of the drivers in favor of creating a spectacle sport.

He has a whole chapter in his one book called  “What Did You Invent Smokey?”  This list is beyond impressive. Smokey Yunick invented or improved upon more engine technology than most of the car manufacturers at the time.  The list starts out with bearings, pistons, combustion chambers, intake manifolds, oil, oil filters, carburetors, wind tunnel testing, brakes, tires, and ends with nine patents for inventions like the hot vapor engine, which you can find in the Smithsonian.

Well, this is all fine and interesting Melissa, you might be saying.  But didn’t Smokey get kicked out of racing for cheating?  Isn’t your favorite picture of him the one where he’s “hiding” behind the garage watching one of his cars on the track?  What about the time when NASCAR got so mad that his car got better fuel mileage than any other car so they took the whole fuel tank away and he still drove the car away from inspection?  How about more next week?

OK but until then check out: www.smokeyyunick.com/

Or read either: "Best Damn Garage in Town: My Life & Adventures" or "Best Damn Garage in Town: The World According to Smokey"

Fair warning, these are a real racer’s stories. There’s sex and booze and dirty words all over the place, and not one single apology for it. A great read, like sitting down with the best Uncle ever.

A while ago, I asked if anyone had any questions about NASCAR history. I basically got two that I have yet to find an answer for. Where is the Pass in the Grass car and when was the first flyover. Well. I haven't given up! I'm still poking around. Never fear, a historian never tires of asking people if they know anything about such and such.

One of the best things about NASCAR's history is that there is still someone around who knows, who saw, and maybe who flew that first flyover. And there is most certainly someone who knows where that chassis is. There are little pockets of NASCAR history all over the US, as Winston Kelley and the other folks over at the NASCAR Hall of Fame certainly know about. Collections and treasures, trophies and photos now have a place where all fans can enjoy them. But there are still a few pieces of NASCAR history that can't be transported to downtown Charlotte.

These bits of NASCAR history are found in the turns of tracks that no longer host races, or tracks that are barely even there any longer. Want to visit Lakewood? One of the most famous tracks in NASCAR's history? Well, you can't quite, it is a parking lot now. But you can see it in Smokey and the Bandit.

If you go to Daytona Beach, you can still find a run down building that was once the Best Damn Garage in Town..and the place where cheating was turned into a science by Smokey Yunick. If you are in North Carolina and ask politely, my thesis adviser might let you see his backyard where one of the mechanics for Fireball Roberts had his own shadetree garage. If you are in South Carolina and go to the right diner for lunch, maybe three of the legends of this sport will share a cup of coffee with you. And dang it, I _know_ that if you knock on the right door, that lawnmover of a 3 is waiting for you.

Anyone have any NASCAR history in their home town?

Happy 4th of July everyone! I hope that everyone has a safe and super fun holiday. How nice that NASCAR now holds the Firecracker 400 on the Saturday closest to the 4th, rather than on the 4th, so we can all have our hotdogs and fireworks!

What's that you say? Yes. I know it hasn't been the Firecracker 400 since 1989. And yes! I know that I wasn't even watching NASCAR in 1989. But really, is there any less sort of 4th of July, Happy Birthday America than the Coke Zero 400? It even says Zero. How un-enthusiastic sounding! How dull!

I say blah. We should really get to keep our named races. Can you imagine if suddenly the Daytona 500 was the Starbucks 500? Showtime snuck their name in to the Southern 500 this season, though the honest truth is that I am so happy to have a Southern 500 again, that I'll let it slide. Our special races, our holidays in the long season should get to have some acknowledgment and celebration.

This is our race for the 4th of July!  Even Goodyear is bringing tires that support the men and women serving our armed forces! This race should be a big, smashing, fireworks and sparklers celebration of America. One would think that the Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola has at least one space, in that whole mouthful, to acknowledge that it is the 4th.  How about the Firecracker 400 powered by Coca-Cola? I think so!

This wasn't too much about history today kids. I think that I fell into the Ranting side a bit.

*sparklers*

This weekend I was at Infineon when I heard the news that Raymond Parks had passed away. I didn't know until they announced it before the Invocation and it broke my heart. Raymond Parks, as I am sure you all have heard by now was the last member of the original committee to form NASCAR.

He was a true legend in our sport and so few people knew about him. I was saddened to see that he was not part of the first class of the Hall of Fame. I know that all the people who were inducted deserved to be there, but Raymond Parks should have had the honor while he was living.

I had the very great honor to meet Raymond Parks at the Living Legends of Auto Racing Banquet. Each year the LLOAR hosts one of the most exciting events around the Daytona 500.  Their annual banquet is held at the Plaza Hotel and it is here that you can find men and women who helped make this sport what it is, from day one. I have had the great pleasure of attending twice. I have met more drivers who raced the sands of Daytona Beach, who ran moonshine through the hills of the South and who can tell you what racing was really like than you can shake a checkered flag at.

I was introduced to Raymond Parks by Eddie Roache of the ISC Archives. He was, as many articles have noted, quite deaf. I probably would have rambled on and on at him, if I hadn't been rendered almost entirely speechless by the fact that I was meeting one of the most important men in stock car racing history. I don't want to give you all a snapshot history of Parks. This piece today is more to emphasize the fact that there are, indeed, people like Parks out there to meet. If you want to know about the history of stock car racing, you can go to South Carolina to the diner where Cotton Owens, Bud Moore and David Pearson have lunch. You can get a pit pass and meet The King. You can visit North Wilkesboro and most likely run into Junior Johnson. We are so lucky! It is a dang shame that more people don't take advantage of the fact that the people who lived this history are still around. 

I highly recommend reading  Driving with Devil by Neal Thompson to get a peek at the contributions of Parks to NASCAR. I also highly recommend coming to the LLOAR banquet. I believe that it is open to the public and the ticket isn't too expensive. Even if it isn't, the $25 dollar membership fee is nothing compared to some of the experiences and conversations you will have.

The Living Legends website: http://www.livinglegendsofautoracing.com/

Rest in Peace, Raymond. Thank you for all you've done for stock car racing and NASCAR.

Really. I really do know that the track is called Infineon. But to me, it will always be Sears Point..Infineon. This is where I saw my first NASCAR race. Surprisingly enough, I did not grow up living and breathing NASCAR. I came because someone offered me a ticket, cold beer, hot sun and fresh duck sausages. We had a caravan of six pickups, we had battery operated margarita makers to pass the time getting to the tailgate site. We hung out in the sunshine for a long morning of good food and good, cold beer.

To give you an idea, this is what it looks like driving to park at Infineon. The track is just over the rise, you park in the hillside grass:

The race started without us. The folks who brought me had no sense of urgency to be there for the first laps. We parked in the far fields above what is now Dale Earnhardt Terrace and we had quite the walk to get to our patch of hillside.  We sat in the dirt above the track, coolers and blankets and beers all settled in. I could hear the engines around the track, but had no idea what to expect. And those cars roared up that 170 foot climb into Turn 3 and I fell in love.

Continue reading this post »

Matt Kenseth entering the garage area after practice at Michigan International Speedway August 18, 2007.

Photo Credit:  Bob Ellis from NASCAR Ranting and Raving (www.4ever3blog.com)

Each week I kind of poke through the internet- through Racing-Reference, through the track's individual sites and through my bookshelf and Racing Bible (Greg Fielden's multi-volume set) to see if I can find some interesting history to share with you.

I was thinking about writing on Cale Yarborough, who won the first race at Michigan International Raceway in 1969.  Or that he only won one other race that whole year (at Atlanta) in his Mercury.. It took awhile for things to fall into place for him to become the first three in a row championship. I thought about writing about how there were a whole heck of a lot more races in those days. The NASCAR Grand National race season had a total of 54 races during the year. That number includes five races on dirt. Thinking of tonight's Prelude, I thought I might write about the dirt tracks that were still around then. But I found a little interesting tidbit about the building of Michigan International, and I thought that I would touch on that.

Continue reading this post »

Hi all! I made it back from Orlando, more or less in one piece after hanging out with a whole bunch of Sport historians. It was a great weekend and I am pretty sure that I helped them to understand our racing heritage and history.

As I was watching the back half of Indy and the Coca-Cola 600, I was thinking about how NASCAR has more than one race which "means something" during the season. What made me think about this was actually a comment made during the race broadcast (forgive me for not remembering who) that winning the Coca-Cola 600 was just as important as winning the Indy 500.

Charlotte Motor Speedway 2007

I know that a large part of this has to do with Charlotte being the home of NASCAR. This is as close as we get to having a home track, for all of us. But what it really made me think of is how the NASCAR season has more than one special race. We have a good handful of important or unique races.

Continue reading this post »

This week we head back to all race fans' home town, Charlotte for our All Star Race.So I thought we would take a little breather.

This week, my column is just a check in with readers of Ranting and Raving to see what it is about NASCAR's history that you would like to know about! Any suggestions that come through, I will be happy to see what I dig up! A driver, a track, a race infamous or famous.. I am itching to do some research, so give some homework!

I am also keeping this week's column short because I am preparing for next week, when I will be attending the North American Society for Sports History's annual conference in Orlando, Florida. I will speaking at a section of the conference which looks at "Wheels." I am very excited to go speak in front of a whole bunch of "stick and ball" folks and other sports historians and let them know how important stock car racing is to American history.

So speak up! Let me know what you might like to learn a little more about! I'll see you soon!

Melissa

(The Track Girl)

This week, the NASCAR Hall of Fame opened in Charlotte. For those of us with the Speed Channel, we got to watch with envy as crowds of race fans stood in the rain and watched some of the legends of our sport arrive to celebrate the celebration of our sport’s history. It is surely time for NASCAR to appreciate the heritage and history of stock car racing that has been left by the wayside for so long.

There has been a great to do about the first class who are about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and I am proud that NASCAR is taking steps to immortalize the men that made the sport what it is today. It was so hard to watch the first twenty-five nominees whittled down to five because there are so many! I thought they should really just cram them in all at once! Yes. I know that isn’t how it works. Don’t worry.

For me, I am most excited about Glory Road. The folks over at the Hall have recreated a stretch of race track which travels up from the first floor. Glory Road is an acknowledgement to how important individual tracks are to the sport as well as reminding the fans that each race track has a personality of its very own.

Here's a glimpse of Daytona's banking from this year's Daytona 500. I'm standing in Turn Four, looking towards the frontstretch.

Continue reading this post »

Hi all! Many of you know that I wrote a Master's thesis on the loss of stock car heritage race tracks and the available options for the preservation of what I believe to be an important part of American history. (Umm. And if you didn't, well, now you do!) It is called, Don't They Just Turn Left? and I am pretty proud of it. For this week, I thought that I would pull out some of what I wrote about the Southern 500 and Darlington Raceway. I truly believe it is an essential part of our sport.

I went to the Springtime Southern 500 last year, using the excuses: I'm a racing historian, It is an important reestablishment of a stock car racing tradition, Holy Cow It's the Southern 500 and HOLY COW I want so bad to see a race at Darlington. All of these being valid reasons, I went. It was some of the best racing I have ever seen in my life. It was also one of the best racing experiences I have ever had. If you've never been, go. If you already have, heck, go again!

.........

Perhaps Darrell Waltrip said it best with a little song sung to the tune of Paris in the Spring, after a crash ruined his chances of winning the 1989 Southern 500 and the coveted Winston Million, "I love Darlington in the spring, I love Darlington in the fall, I love Darlington in Victory Lane, but I hate Darlington in the wall." Darlington Raceway is one of the most loved, loathed and respected tracks in NASCAR. Darlington Raceway represents sixty years of NASCAR’s stock car racing history.

In the middle of the 2003 season, NASCAR announced "Realignment 2004" and major changes in the schedule began; tracks lost dates, races were moved from track to track. NASCAR insisted that they were not "removing roots but rather gaining new ones," but NASCAR removed one of the most significant races and tracks which represented the heritage of stock car racing from their schedule: Darlington’s Southern 500.

The removal of the Labor Day race date meant that the traditional Southern 500 was no longer a part of the NASCAR schedule despite the role it had played in developing the sport. Rather than retain a significant part of stock car racing heritage, NASCAR moved the Labor Day race on the schedule to the California Speedway in Fontana, California and Darlington Raceway would have one race a year, in the spring. 

Continue reading this post »

This weekend NASCAR heads to Talladega. The home of the Big One. The track is seriously bad ass, scary and fast. Yup. There are huge parties, a infamous infield, and more side by side racing than any other track. We’ve all seen Talladega Nights; there are some funny bits, some close to the truth bits and some insulting bits. Shake and Bake, right?

But in 1969, Alabama Motor Speedway was just a big, bad ass, rough scary track. The track was still called Alabama Motor Speedway until 1989, by the way. There hadn’t been a Big One, but the surface was so rough and the speeds that the track were producing was something that few drivers wanted anything to do with.

Who can name the first winner at the track? I couldn’t, I’ll admit it. I had to go and look it up. (Thanks to Racing-Reference.com! A resource that I keep at hand at all times.) Richard Brickhouse, from Rocky Point, North Carolina won the first race at Talladega. Brickhouse’s brief showing in NASCAR brought him only one win, here at the track few drivers were willing to face.

Continue reading this post »