senor honda

1935
1935 News
Addressing a recent conclave of Daytona business executives, L.H. "Rocky" Neereamer, official AAA field representative, said: "Stock car auto races in the past encouraged various changes in the motor and body design of contesting cars. This is the first time an event has been confined strictly to all-stock automobiles."

Major "Goldie" Gardner, too, is of the opinion that beach and road racing will prove exceedingly popular here. Gardner, noted British race driver now vacationing at Daytona Beach, is a prospective entrant for the March speed classic.

Meanwhile, Daytona Speed officials have announced the entry of six Ford drivers and owners. They are: Sam Purvis, Jacksonville; Jack Sheppard, Tampa; Gil Allgnier, Ormond Beach; Lloyd Moody, Daytona Beach; Harry Atkinson, Daytona Beach; and Buddy Galloway, Miami.

Purvis, winner of the 1933 road race at Jacksonville has had considerable experience in road racing; Allgnier and Moody are newcomers, while Galloway is a dirt track performer of note.

Sheppard and Atkinson have entered privately-owned cars in the national competition here. Sheppard will probably engage "Shorty" Drexler of Louisville, Ohio, as a driver, while Atkinson is dickering.

Additional entrants are expected to include local gas station owner, Bill France; dirt track champions, Bob Sall, Ben Shaw and "Doc" Mackenzie; midget racing champion, Bill Schindler; Indy 500 winner Wild Bill Cummings; wealthy sportsman Sam Collier; and Palm Beach millionaire builder of famous cars and speed boat, John Rutherford.

The fastest man in the world from Norway, Sig Haugdahl, measured a mile and a half distance on the blacktop road Highway A1A and cut turns into the sand dunes to establish the race track. Sig Haugdahl was famous as the first driver to exceed three miles a minute (180 mph) in an automobile on Daytona-Ormond beach in 1922. His custom built "Wisconsin Special" is still the narrowest car ever built which attained a land speed record on the world famous beach race court at Daytona-Ormond, Florida.

senor honda

reserved

senor honda

1936
Video is from original 8mm film before the days of sound, (around 1950's) and goes
into the 60's. Cars are mostly 1930's. In memory of Doug Garrison by snooch77.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBWZpcCE-NE

senor honda

Fred Frattura Tribute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_7qISXqOWs

senor honda

1937 by Brian Katen
Until the late 1930s, automobile racing in Virginia appears to have been held exclusively on the fairground tracks. The first track built specifically for automobile racing was probably Airport Speedway in Winchester, built in 1937. The 1930s also saw the introduction of other types of auto racing at the fairgrounds, and by 1940 Airport speedway was holding “jalopy races,” competitions between inexpensive, cut-down cars (typically Fords with flathead V-8’s) often salvaged from junk yards.
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1938
"MAD" MARION MCDONALD
Marion McDonald was raised in a home built in 1887 at McDonald Station, Florida and learned to drive in the family orange groves. "One day I hit the railroad tracks and my car jumped a four-foot gate on the other side. After that I never opened that gate again, " he said.

In 1938 Mac went to work at Bill France's gas station in Daytona Beach, and that same year he entered the time trials for the beach-road race. In a 74-mph dash, he posted a time two mph faster than France. At age 21 he entered the race driving his personal car, a 1937 yellow Ford Phaeton (No. 14). Mac was tied into the car with a rope and carried an open knife taped to the dash to free himself in an emergency.

During one pit stop Mac grabbed a hamburger from one of his pit crew. The fans were amused to see Mac racing into the North Turn and down A1A eating a hamburger. One fan remarked, "Look at that madman eating lunch while driving in a race," and Marion McDonald became "Mad" Marion McDonald.

As he sped down the beach on a later lap, Mac came up on a car stalled across the North Turn. The driver was out of the car and running across the track toward safety. To avoid hitting him, Mac took the high side, climbed the dunes on two wheels, and drove on. He discovered that taking the turn on two wheels improved his speed and began entering the turns more often than not on two wheels. His daredevil style delighted the fans, but Mac describes it as "just Sunday afternoon driving."

Mad Marion raced the beach course in 1938 and 1939. He got married in 1940 and at the request of his bride tried to settle down. But the roar of the engines was too strong, and without his wife's knowledge, Mac raced the Florida short tracks in a 1935 Ford nicknamed the White Ghost. McDonald's last race was in Casselberry in 1946, and he still has vivid memories of the crash that ended his racing career. "A car in front of me hit a guardrail, and the rail came through my windshield and out the back window. It just kept coming and coming." Mac escaped without serious injury, but even today he flashes back to that guardrail. After the Casselberry race, Mad Marion retired from racing and became a gentleman farmer.

Mac's racing skills were unexpectedly revived in 1973. On February 27 he was driving on Florida State Road 15 when a station wagon with two women and two small boys overturned in a ditch. A three-year-old boy was pinned under the crankcase with four inches of clearance. Mac tried to dig under the boy but failed; he tried to flag help, but again failed. He drove his truck through the mud and up the steep canal bank, lowered the power lift tail gate, backed under the car, raised the front, and pulled the child to safety. He received a commendation from the Florida Highway Patrol for his heroic action.

Marion McDonald lives with his wife, Mary, in Port Orange, Florida and is a member of the Living Legends of Auto Racing.

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1938
CARL D. "SMOKEY" PURSER
Smokey Purser holds two racing distinctions that will never be equaled. He was the first driver to be officially disqualified and the first driver to take a provisional start.

Purser was born in Lumber City, Georgia. He arrived in Daytona in 1919 and soon became known about town as a colorful character. He worked as a mechanic on a dredge boat and referred to himself as a sea lawyer. But most of the cases that Smokey handled were filled with illegal liquor. He occasionally traveled from Florida to St. Louis, dressed as a priest, with a car full of moonshine. On other runs he drove a car with "Fresh Florida Fish" painted on the side and a few dead fish in the back.

Despite his reputation as a bootlegger and a gambler, Smokey had a soft heart. Every Thanksgiving he took food to a Daytona orphanage, and one year he bought and installed ten new pews in a local church. But on a race track, he was entirely different.

Oldtimers say that after one race, as Smokey accepted the trophy, an inspector wanted to see the engine. When he opened the hood straps, Smokey slammed the hood shut, reached under the glove compartment, and pulled out a pistol.

"Well, it looks like this car is legal," said the inspector. Years later Smokey corrected the story: "The pistol wasn't in the glove compartment. It was in my wife's purse!"

In July 1938 Smokey became the first driver to be officially disqualified under the emerging NASCAR rules. The first five finishers had to submit their cars to a post-race teardown to ensure that the cars were strictly stock. Instead of stopping to accept the trophy, Smokey took the checkered flag, sped up the beach, and disappeared for three hours. When he finally appeared at the inspection station, he was disqualified. It seems the officials thought Smokey had altered his car during those three hours. Notwithstanding the disqualification, in the minds of the fans Smokey had won the race.

Purser finished second to Roy Hall on March 2, 1941 and won the March 30 race. Qualifying for the July race was rained out, and Smokey took the first provisional. In just 30 laps he passed 30 cars but went out after breaking a piston.

senor honda

1938: Bill France began promoting races on the beach
BILL FRANCE
William Henry Getty (Big Bill) France was born in Washington, D.C. His first race car had a wooden body covered with canvas, and he raced it on local tracks area. After graduating from high school, Bill worked for a gas station and a car dealer in Washington before moving his family to Daytona.

In 1936 Bill and Sig Haughdal laid out the first beach-road course. The course ran south on A1A, turned across the dunes to the beach just south of the measured mile course, and came back up the beach to the North Turn. The American Automobile Association, which had timed the speed runs on the beach, sanctioned the first 250-mile stock car race in 1936. The purse was $5,000, and the competition was limited to strictly stock automobiles.

France entered the 1936 race in a '35 Ford. He started tenth -- eight minutes after the first car. The race was a scorer's nightmare because of the deep ruts in the turns, and no one is really sure who won, but France officially finished fifth.

Years later Bill admitted that living in Daytona and driving the sand on a regular basis gave him an advantage. "If you went too slow, you mired down and had to be towed out. If you went too fast, you dug in and flipped."

When the Daytona Elks Club declined France's offer to sponsor a race in 1938, France became a driver-promoter. With Charlie Reese he formed the Daytona Beach Racing Association. But racing had two major problems: cheating and dishonest promoters. France was determined to correct both. In 1938 he established a post-race inspection. If the inspectors discovered any deviation between the car and the manufacturer's specifications, the car was disqualified.

On December 14, 1947, he solved the second problem by calling to order the first meeting of the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona. The rest is history!
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The 1938 AAA Championship Car season consisted of two races, beginning in Speedway, Indiana on May 30 and concluding in Syracuse, New York on September 10. There were also two non-championship events. The AAA National Champion and Indianapolis 500 winner was Floyd Roberts.
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RAY NICHELS STORY
In 1938, at the age of 15, Ray Nichels, went on the road as a midget car crew chief, racing at tracks across America. From 1938-1948, the drivers of the Ray Nichels prepared midgets (campaigned by his father, Rudy Nichels) were Ted Duncan, Tony Bettenhausen, Johnnie Parsons, Paul Russo, Mike O'Halloran, and Ray Richards. (All members of the Midget Racing Hall of fame.)

Following his time midget racing, Nichels moved on to Indy cars and eventually participated in 12 Indianapolis 500 races, as a chief mechanic and crew chief. In those twelve 500's, Ray Nichels won one Pole (1957 w/Pat O'Connor), garnered two top-five finishes ( a 3rd and 5th w/ Paul Goldsmith), and five top-ten finishes. Most notable of his top-ten finishes was the 9th place showing in the 1950 Indianapolis500 of the Russo-Nichels Special. Paul Russo and Ray Nichels constructed this car in the basement of Russo' Hammond, Indiana home during the winter of 1949-1950. Qualifying in the seventh row, the Russo-Nichels Special captured the imagination of the American racing public by running with the leaders for much of the day, before the rain-shortened race ended at 345 miles. The Russo-Nichels Special soon became affectionately known as "Basement Bessie" as it was campaigned an the AAA Championship during the 1950 season. In December, Nichels with Johnnie Parsons behind the wheel, won the first ever Indy car race at the newly built Darlington Raceway. On the season, Ray Nichels and Paul Russo and their hand-built "basement" creation missed the chance to win the National Championship only after a season-ending injury to Russo in the November AAA Indy car race in Phoenix.

Nichels then toiled as chief mechanic for Johnnie Parsons' entries in the 1953 and 1954 Indy 500 races. In June of 1954, Ray Nichels joined the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company as its chief mechanic for all tire testing. In their first test together, he had a drive-course speed record of 182.554 mph at Chrysler Corporation's newly built Chelsea, Michigan proving grounds in a Nichels prepared Chrysler Hemi-powered Kurtis-Kraft roadster. It would be the first of many world speed records that Nichels and his cars set over the next 20 years.

In 1957, Ray Nichels and Indiana-based Nichels Engineering won the pole (w/Banjo Matthews) and won the race (w/Cotton Owens) at the NASCAR Grand National Beach Race at Daytona. Two months later, Nichels traveled to Monza, Italy on behalf of Firestone, and set a series of world speed records on the world's highest-banked oval with Pat O'Connor behind the wheel of the Chrysler Hemi-powered Kurtis-Kraft roadster. Nichels and O'Connor then returned to the United States where they won the Pole position for the world's most important race, The Indianapolis 500. It is believed Ray Nichels remains to be the only mechanic to ever win the pole at both Daytona and Indianapolis in the same year.

With the 1957 Daytona win, Nichels expanded his stock car racing business becoming the "house" racecar builder for Pontiac from 1956-1963. Working directly for Pontiac Gen. Mgr. Semon "Bunkie" Knudsen, Nichels managed Pontiac's involvement in stock car racing from his operations in Highland, Indiana. By 1961, under Nichels' guidance, Pontiac dominated America stock car racing. Nichels Engineering driver, Paul Goldsmith captured the USAC National Championship with 10 wins, 7 poles and 16 top-five finishes in 19 races. Overall Pontiac performance in USAC was 14 wins, no poles and 38 top-five finishes in 22 races. In NASCAR, overall Pontiac performance was 30 wins in 52 races. In 1962, Pontiac's dominance under Nichels became even further evident as Nichels and Goldsmith won their 2nd consecutive USAC National Championship with 8 wins, 6 poles and 15 top-five finishes in 22 races.Four Nichels Engineering drivers (Goldsmith, A.J. Foyt, Rodger Ward, and Len Sutton) finished in the seasons Top Ten. In NASCAR, overall Pontiac performance was 22 wins in 53 races, with Joe Weatherly winning the National Championship driving a Nichels Engineering built, Bud Moore prepped Pontiac.

senor honda

1939
1939 Race
Fan interest in the July 4 edition of the 150-mile marathon for semi-stock cars received a big boost yesterday when it was announced that Mad Marion McDonald, the 21-year-old Orlando driver who ran the other racers frantic and the spectators wild with glee at his reckless antics in the March 19 race, had listed his entry for the Independence day grind.

The slender Orlando youth, who wheeled his yellow touring car around the turns and hurled it down the straight-aways in the March race, is one of the most daring drivers ever to show his skill and courage on the road-beach course.

The youthful daredevil had motor trouble in the March race and lost his lead when he tore up his transmission and couldn't change gears. He finished the grind, however, although he was out of the money. But the spectators, who watched the course intently for the sight of the yellow hood, felt that they had gotten their money's worth from his antics alone.

He has his automobile back in shape again now according to a letter received at race headquarters, and he'll be back to give the front runners a threat and the customers a thrill on July 4.

senor honda

1940
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPQ369O17a8

a clearer version plus stunt shows: http://www.myfootage.com/video/396/1940s-CAR-RACING,-DEMOLITION-DERBY-and-CAR-STUNTS.html

Various shots: From stands and tracking shots stock car racing c.1940s,Three teenage boys with Pompadour hairstyles and 1940s fashions sitting in stands, heads turning in unison following off screen object moving past,Demolition Derby.
"For this and more footage visit: http://www.MyFootage.com"
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RAYMOND PARKS
Before the Alabama Gang, there was a Georgia Gang, and Raymond Parks was its leader. Raymond owned the cars, Red Vogt prepared them, and Red Byron, Bob Flock, Fonty Flock, Roy Hall, Ed Samples, Lloyd Seay, Jack Smith, and Gober Sosebee drove them.

Raymond, who owned the Hemphill service station in Atlanta, became involved in racing when his cousins, Roy Hall and Lloyd Seay, asked him to sponsor their race cars. Hall and Seay were so successful that Raymond added new cars and new drivers.

Raymond is at the top of everyone's list of champions. He came to win, and he hired the best to help him. "I don't remember anybody back then racing cars like he did. He did everything first class. The cars had showroom finishes every race. There was never a fender bent that wasn't replaced," recalls Cotton Owens.

Raymond entered the March 1940 beach race with Roy Hall as his driver. When the race leader, Joe Littlejohn, spent two minutes in the pits, Hall took the lead.

Hall, who pitted several laps later, was out in 40 seconds. (Remember this was 1940 when two-minute pit stops were the norm!) Hall won the race with a new race record of 76.53 mph.

Raymond sponsored Hall and Seay in the March 1941 races. Roy won, and Seay came in seventh. In the second race that month, Hall came in second behind Smokey Purser. In the July 1941 race, Seay was fourth, and Hall was eighth. Seay won the August 1941 race.

World War II interrupted racing, and Raymond served with the 99th Division of First Army at the northern corner of the Ardennes salient at the Battle of the Bulge. In April 1946 he was back with a vengeance and a crew of young daredevils. His teams won all five beach races in 1945 and 1946, the first NASCAR-sanctioned race in 1948, and the first strictly stock championship that same year.

Raymond serves on the board of directors of The Living Legends of Auto Racing. He and his wife, Vi, live in Atlanta.

senor honda

1941 by Brian Katen
By 1941 a new type of automobile racing, stock car racing, was beginning to draw the attention of promoters throughout the country. That year the Richmond Times Dispatch noted that stock car racing was “sweeping the country like a prairie fire.” (The first AAA-sanctioned stock car race had occurred at New York’s Roosevelt Raceway in 1939.) Races between essentially unmodified “stock” cars at the Virginia State Fair had occurred at least as early as 1928, but what was likely the first sanctioned feature “stock car” race in Virginia was held at the half-mile track at the State Fairground in Richmond on July 4, 1941. That race was open to any stock car of American manufacture from 1939-1941. The Richmond Times Dispatch described the race cars as “strictly stock” with “only the headlights, hubcaps, and bumpers removed.” It also reported that “speed crazy stock car racing drivers” from Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Florida had entered the race. To appeal to the average car owner, newspaper ads described the race as “passenger car auto races.” The next day the Times Dispatch reported that approximately 4,000 people had attended the race. Six months later the entry of the United States into World War II brought a five-year halt to automobile racing in Virginia.
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LIGHTNIN' LLOYD SEAY
Lloyd Seay (pronounced See) was well known to Georgia lawmen. "He was without a doubt the best automobile driver of this time. He was absolutely fearless, and an excellent driver on those dusty, dirt roads. I caught him eight times and had to shoot his tires off every time," said one deputy. Another told of a night when he stopped Seay for speeding as he headed north for another load of 'shine. Seay handed the deputy two $10's. The officer said, "You know the fine is only $10.00." Seay responded, "I'm paying for my return trip later tonight."

At age 18 Lloyd took his tripper skills to the track. At age 21, he joined his cousin, Roy Hall, for the beach races in a car owned by another cousin, Raymond Parks. "Lloyd Seay put his heart and life into racing long before the era of great material reward. He raced flat out simply because he loved going fast," says racing historian Greg Fielden.

Although Seay started 15th in the August 24, 1941 beach race, he led the entire 50 laps for his first win in five starts. He won his next race at High Point on August 31 and left immediately for the September 1 Labor Day race at Atlanta's Lakewood Speedway. He arrived late, missed qualifying, and started last. By lap 35 he was leading. He battled Bob Flock all afternoon and won the race -- his third in 15 days. It was his last race.

After winning at Lakewood, Lloyd drove to the home of his brother, Jim, in Burlsboro to spend the night. The following morning their cousin Woodrow Anderson, who had a police record for making moonshine, came to the house to settle a disagreement about some sugar that Lloyd had purchased and charged to Woodrow. Lloyd, Jim, and Woodrow left Jim's house and went to the home of Woodrow's father.

Jim later described the shooting in a police statement: "Woodrow got out of the car to see if it needed any water. Then he told me if I didn't want to get mixed up in anything I had better get out of the car. He jumped on Lloyd, hitting him with his fist.

"He pulled a gun out of the bib of his overalls and as I spoke he shot me in the neck. He turned the gun on Lloyd and shot him through the heart and told me if I opened my mouth he would finish me off."

Woodrow told a different version: "We had a little fuss about a settlement. Lloyd had bought some sugar and charged it to my credit and when I asked him about coming to some agreement about it he said, 'Well, you got it, didn't you?' I told him, 'Yes, I got it, but it ought to be figured in when we settle up.' Then both of them jumped on me and I run. I run through the house and got my daddy's .32 Smith and Wesson pistol and come out and tried to get in my car.

"They wouldn't let me get in and it looked like they were about to give me a whuppin' so I started shootin'. One word led to another. The first thing I knew we was quarreling, then I was runnin', then I was shootin'. That's all there was to it."

Woodrow Anderson was tried in late October and sentenced to life in prison.

[HR][/HR]From the Atlanta Constitution

Lloyd Seay, lanky, blond and youthful, was well known in Atlanta and all along the highways to the mountains. Federal, state and county officers knew him as the most daring of all the daredevil crew that hauled liquor from mountain stills to Atlanta. They had many a wild chase when they hit his trail, but they only caught him rarely, for he handled his car down the twisting blacktop hill-country roads at a pace few of them cared to follow.

He will be missed by race fans as well. Fifteen thousand people saw him race his souped-up Ford around the track at Lakewood Monday, running a hundred miles in 89 minutes to win more than $450.00 in cash.

Lloyd Seay, the smiling blond Georgia daredevil who gave speed fans at the July 27 stock car race here their biggest thrill when he turned his No. 7 Ford up on its running board as he negotiated the north turn, and who won the August 24 race here, will race no more.

senor honda

1941
FONTY FLOCK
Fonty Flock became one of the central figures in the formative days of NASCAR. But in order to become a cornerstone of the frolicking folklore of the sanctioning body's early years, Fonty had to overcome debilitating injuries.

Flock's career began before the outbreak of World War II and he had a unrelenting need for experiences of the wildest, adventurous sort.

After kicking around the dust bowls of Georgia for a couple of years, Flock began the bi-annual trek to Daytona Beach and the high speed excitement the Beach-Road course offered. Flock was among scores of other hopefuls who were entered in the late model stock car race at Daytona on July 27, 1941.

In his third effort on the unique course that combined the sandy shore line and a narrow two-lane blacktop highway, Flock had become one of the favorites. He was saddled in the pole position alongside rambunctious Roy Hall.

Flock took a narrow lead in the opening lap, but the relentless Hall was nipping at his heel all the way down the long but narrow blacktop backstretch. As the pair wheeled into the South turn, the cars banged together. Flock's Ford darted to the high side of the corner, climbed the outer edge of the track and spiraled end-over-end and side-over-side into a clump of palmetto bushes. The seat belt had snapped in one of the early turnovers and Flock's limp body was flopping around inside the car.

The car landed upside down and Fonty somehow was still alive. An ambulance rushed to the scene and transported him to the Medical Center in Daytona Beach. Attending physician Dr. George Green said he believed Flock was suffering from a crushed chest, broken pelvis, head and back injuries and severe shock. Dr. Green wasn't exactly sure what was needed to piece Flock back together. X-rays had to be postponed due to his extraordinary number off injuries. For weeks Fonty would be wrapped in more bandages than Boris Karloff.

Flock had barely missed adding his name to the black-bordered memorial pages of the local newspaper. But he faced months, maybe years, of delicate recovery.

America was drawn into a world wide conflict when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor four months after Flock's accident. Auto racing was banned in this country and it wasn't until late 1945 that the distinctive roar of the mighty stock car engines was heard again in the South.

Flock was still in no condition to resume his racing career when the war ended. The fall stock car racing season in 1945 and the entire 1946 campaign was logged in the history pages without the presence of Fonty Flock.

In fact, the 1947 season was well underway when Fonty was healed enough to strap his stocky frame into a racing car. Bob Flock, Fonty's older brother, had convinced car owner Ed Schenck to put Fonty in his car for the inaugural stock car race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. The grand opening for the new track was May 5, 1947 -- and 10,000 spectators and two dozen drivers were on hand for the festive inaugural event.

Incredibly, Fonty won the pole and his heat race despite being out of racing for four and a half years. And then he scampered to victory in the 30-lap feature, outrunning Glenn Dunnaway and Pepper Cunningham.

A month later, Flock won at Greenville, South Carolina -- just to prove his North Wilkesboro victory wasn't a fluke. He won yet again the next week at Greensboro. Suddenly, Fonty found himself locked in a tight point race.

Victories followed at Charlotte and Trenton while driving a car owned by Al Dykes. At one point in the season, Fonty and Bob Flock were deadlocked atop the point standings for the National Championship Stock Car Circuit, the name of Bill France's sanctioning body before the series was tagged with the familiar NASCAR insignia. Ed Samples, who was declared the 1946 national champion, was also in the hunt for a second straight title.

Bob Flock, who was driving the highly regarded Raymond Parks Ford throughout the season, crashed hard and broke his back in a race at Spartanburg in October. Fonty took over the red and white #14 Ford and, from that point of the season until its conclusion, accumulated more points than any other driver. As the 1947 season drew to a close at Jacksonville, Florida on December 7, 1947, Flock found himself standing on the mighty throne, perched atop stock car racing's most virtuous peak -- the NCSCC champion.

Flock started 24 races in 1947 and won seven times. He finished 235 points in front ofSamples, who won twice in 34 starts. Red Byron, who won nine of his 18 starts, ranked third in points when the season ended.

Winning in his first start after crippling injuries and topping it off with a championship remain classic portraits on NASCAR's lively canvas of speed.

The fans adored Fonty Flock's warm smile, his amiable attitude and most of all that irrepressible spirit so characteristic of his personality.

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1942