Bill France continued
France's original plan was for NASCAR to oversee three separate and distinct classes of cars: Strictly Stock, Modified, and Roadsters. Perhaps surprisingly, the Modified and Roadster classes were seen as more attractive to fans than Strictly Stock. As things turned out, though, the audience NASCAR attracted wanted nothing to do with Roadsters, a "Yankee" series more popular in the Midwest and Northeast. It didn't take long for France to recognize that he didn't need the Roadster.
After the war was over the big automakers had to switch production from Tanks and Jeeps back to their makes of cars. This got France to thinking that the fans would want to purchase cars when they see them winning at the races and he knew that productions were going to be slow for a while. He decided that NASCAR would run pre '40s Fords and Chevrolets plus a handful of new Buick's were allowed. The 1948 schedule covered 52 dirt-track races for modified's and Red Byron was the national champion that year.
PART THREE . . . In February of 1949, France staged a 20 mile exhibition race near Miami for his Strictly Stock division. Fearing he would lose out to a promoter in North Carolina, France decided to stage a Strictly Stock points race. This race took place in June and was scheduled as a 200-lap, 150 mile race around a 3/4-mile dirt track in Charlotte, North Carolina. It carried a purse of $5,000. for 33 street-legal family sedans that had been built since 1946. Pole sitter Bob Flock led the first five laps in a 46 Hudson, Bill Blair led laps 6 thru 150 in a 1949 Lincoln, and Glen Dunnaway led the remaining laps in a 1947 Ford. After the race Dunnaway's car was inspected and failed because he had altered the rear springs. He was disqualified and moved to the back of the field and stripped him of the win and money. This moved Roper to the first place spot followed by Fonty Flock in second, Byron in third, Sam Rice in fourth, and Tim Flock finished out the top five. Hubert Westmoreland owner of Dunnaway's car sued the new sanctioning body for $10,000. however a North Carolina Judge ruled that the officials had the right to make and enforce their rules without outside interference and dismissed the suit. That mid-summer race attracted 13,000 plus fans, far more than was expected. NASCAR promoted seven more Strictly Stock races that year: two each in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, one each in Florida, New York, and Virginia. Byron won the Strictly Stock class that year in what was to become the Grand Nationals and Winston Cup series. Lee Petty finished 2nd in points followed by Bob Flock, Curtis Turner, and Jack Smith. Fifty drivers raced in at least one race each that year and between 16 and 45 drivers showed up for each race.
France wondered what was missing from his Strictly Stock division. He had to come up with a blockbuster event to draw more attention to his Strictly Stock cars. The USAC champ car circuit had the Indy 500, and NASCAR Modified and Sportsman division had their annual beach/road races in February at Daytona Beach. In 1950 Harold Brasington built a 1.25 mile, high-banked, egg shaped speedway just west of his hometown of Darlington. He stunned the racing world by paving it and saying that he wanted to someday host a 500-mile stock car race. Brasington himself a retired racer had known France from their old racing days at Daytona and other dirt tracks throughout the Southeast and Midwest. He was aware that France's new organization wanted to expand their image and he figured a 500-mile race would be the answer.
In the fall of 1949 Brasington bought a 70 acre farm from Sherman Ramsey and he began carving a superspeedway out of what had been a cotton and peanut field. Instead of developing his track into a true oval, he was forced to create an egg-shaped facility with one end tighter, more steeply-banked and narrower than the other end. You see he promised Ramsey when he purchased the land that the track wouldn't disturb the minnow pond on the property's western fringe. So that meant that Barrington could make the eastern end as wide, sweeping, and flat as he wanted but the western end had to be just the opposite because of the minnow pond.
It took almost a year to build and pave the new track. In the summer of 1950 as Sam Nunis spoke of promoting a 500-mile NASCAR race at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta, Barrington and France were making the final
arrangements to run a 500-miler at Darlington on Labor-day. The inaugural Southern 500 carried a stock-car record purse of $25,000. and was co-sanctioned by NASCAR and the rival Central States Racing Association. Over 80 cars showed up and it took two weeks to get them all qualified. The race started with a 75 car field aligned in 25 rows and three abreast.
After filling all 9,000 seats fans were directed to the infield where a sea of over 6,000 people watched the race. It took Johnny Mantz more than six hours to cover the full 500 miles. He drove a 1950 Plymouth owned by France, Westmoreland, and a couple more guys. Fireball Roberts finished second, Red Byron was third, and Bill Rexford was fourth. The Southern 500 was NASCAR's only paved track event in 1950. There were only four paved events in 1951 and they were two at Dayton, Ohio and one each at Darlington, and Thompson, Connecticut. Paved tracks didn't begin to gain acceptance until the late '50s. Darlington and the half-miler at Dayton each had two races in 1952. In 1953 Darlington and the new 1-mile asphalt track at Raleigh, North Carolina each had a Grand National race. In 1954 Darlington, Raleigh, and the paved road course at Linden, New Jersey Airport had a race each. In 1955 Martinsville, Virginia had one race, Darlington one race, and Raleigh had two races.
NASCAR's future began to come in focus in 1956. NASCAR sanctioned 11 paved-track races among 56 events. They had 14 out of 53 venues in 1957, and 24 out of 51 venues in 1958. Not only were they racing on oval tracks France also scheduled road course races at Watkins Glen, New York, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, and Bridgehampton, New York. Suddenly, almost overnight, it seemed NASCAR racing was becoming a national series rather than a regional series, Bill France's dream was heading toward the future. *****