NASCAR on July 4 –
Set the Time Machine for Oswego or Spartanburg or Raleigh or...
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I
grew up thinking that NASCAR always raced on July 4 (first the exact date, then
the closest weekend) at Daytona. If you’re old enough, you remember the races
starting at 10:00 so fans could be on the beach by 2:00.
Well
guess what? It hasn’t always been that way. Here’s the scoop.
As
we’ve noted before, NASCAR’s inaugural Strictly Stock/Grand
National/Sponsor-Cup season didn’t begin until mid-June of 1949, and while the
second race was on the Daytona Beach-Road Course on July 10, it’s hard to count
that as a July 4 event, since the Fourth was Monday nearly a week earlier.
Besides,
the Beach-Road Course race moved to its soon-to-become traditional February
slot the next season, and in 1950, NASCAR headed north for its firecracker fix.
On Sunday, July 2, Curtis Turner whipped a field of 25 at the Monroe County
Fairgrounds in Rochester, N.Y. to become NASCAR’s first Fourth-of-July-Weekend
winner.
That
race was the last of a four-event run above the Mason-Dixon Line. Bill France
was trying hard to make NASCAR a national (or at least multi-regional) series,
and 10 of 1950’s 19 races were held outside the Southeast.
This is a previous Monroe County Fairgrounds
location, and I have no idea what these folks are about to watch, but it
definitely drew a boatload of fans, who didn’t seem at all worried about their
safety.
(BTW, any idea of a
“throwback” event here can be banished quickly. The fair has moved from the
location where the former race was held, and the track itself was demolished
and replaced more than a decade ago. If you’d like to relive the fair’s
history, though, check out this
Rochester newspaper article.)
Things
were largely the same in 1951, when – like this year – July 4 was on a
Wednesday. Races were held the weekend before at Grand Rapids, Mich. (at an old
fairgrounds site where racing was held as early as 1903 and continued until the
mid-‘60s, when a new expressway needed the land) and the weekend afterward at
Bainbridge, Ohio (at a one-mile fairgrounds dirt track that later raced horses
but has been gone for more than half a century).
Then,
in 1952, NASCAR raced on July 4 for the first time, and it happened at a track
that has survived and holds a high profile today: Oswego Speedway in New York,
“Home of the Supermodifieds.” In those days the place was known as Wine Creek
Race Track and was dirt – this seems to have been the last race run on the dirt
surface.
For the uninitiated, a supermodified looks kind
of like an Indy Car that was built down at Randy’s Speed Shop. It’s wicked
fast, and there aren’t many places you can see them race.
Tim
Flock outran Herb Thomas to win that race, with Dick Rathmann finishing third
in the 26-car field. Oddly, 6 of the 10 cars that failed to finish listed
“tires” as their reason out of the race, which might explain why they paved the
joint.
As
you can see in the photo above, Oswego is a pretty big place, and it’s gotten
bigger over the past couple of years, when in late October they’ve covered the
pavement with clay and run Super DIRT Week, headlined by a huge 200-lap event
for big-block modifieds. This race was run for years at the one-mile Syracuse
Fairgrounds track until the politicians decided “progress” meant that facility
had to go.
Given
that Oswego also runs what I think is the biggest supermodified race anywhere
on Labor Day Weekend, this place might even be able to handle a Cup race, if
another short track would help bring our sport back from the brink.
Here’s Oswego as a dirt track. Maybe NASCAR
could run BOTH a paved short-track event and a dirt race there.
Back
to history: In 1953, NASCAR finally ran on
July 4 in the South, specifically at Spartanburg’s Piedmont Interstate
Fairgrounds, but that race was somewhat hampered by one of Bill France’s
oddball scheduling stunts that were fairly common back then: the day before the
Spartanburg race, the Grand National Series ran again at the Monroe County
Fairgrounds in New York. Not surprisingly, only three drivers competed in both
events: Herb Thomas (who won in New York), Lee Petty (who won in South
Carolina) and Dick Rathmann.
Here’s a later Grand National race at
Spartanburg. Sadly, all that’s left of the track today are crumbling remains –
Google says it’s called “Fairfield Park.”
The
next season, Spartanburg ran on July 3 (a Saturday), and Asheville-Weaverville
Speedway picked up the July 4 date. Fortunately for the drivers, these tracks
were a lot closer together, so the holiday weekend was pretty much racing as
usual, especially for Herb Thomas, who won both events.
Herb Thomas – the Fourth of July Weekend was
good to him, but then so were most of the others.
Spartanburg
continued to run on July 4 weekend, but by 1956, there was a new kid in town
with more pull, the one-mile paved Raleigh Speedway, one of NASCAR’s premier
tracks, and it wanted – and got – the July 4 date.
Raleigh
had been running Grand National events since 1953, its second year of
operation, trying Memorial Day Weekend, late August and late September.
Apparently still seeking the perfect date for fans, it decided to try for July
4
Poor
Spartanburg didn’t stand a chance when money was waved in the general direction
of Daytona. For two years it tried to run close to the Fourth, but its date
moved to April the following season and was never settled after that. For a
track in what many considered the true heart of stock car racing, it certainly
didn’t get any respect.
Raleigh
held the July 4 date for three seasons before it closed after the 1958 season,
mostly because of community opposition to a track located in a fairly heavily
populated suburban area.
(For
more information on the Raleigh track, check out: http://www.raleighspeedway.org/home
)
A photo said to be from the 1956 Grand National
race at Raleigh Speedway. Note the slightly smaller “war wagon” for the pit
crew and the obviously not-quite-fireproof uniforms.
More from Raleigh: a view of the press box and
a good effort to make sure you knew who was driving #11.
Raleigh’s
demise, of course, coincided with the rise of Bill France’s Daytona International
Speedway, which assumed the July 4 date and has held it (or its post-1987
successor, the closest Saturday to the Fourth) ever since. At first there was
grousing about the purse, and in 1961 only 30 drivers started the lowest-paying
superspeedway event of the year (less than half the purse of the Daytona 500,
World 600 or Southern 500), with Richard Petty, Jim Paschal, Jim Reed and
others choosing to race a non-Grand National NASCAR event at Lincoln Speedway
in New Oxford, Pa., a couple of days before and skipping Daytona. Still, the
race grew with NASCAR, got solid sponsors and a longer distance (250 to 400
miles) and remains solidly on the schedule.
Except
for Oswego, all the other tracks running on or nearly on the Fourth are gone.
Even if Daytona won’t give up the holiday date for a year, it would be awesome
to return to NASCAR’s roots and run a race at “The Home of the Supermodifieds,”
and I’ll bet it would be a good show, better than some current alternatives
(you’ll notice that I’m not writing about Chicago this week).
Check
out the videos on Oswego’s website to see the action there:
No
Loose
Lug Nuts this week, due to time constraints – I’m headed out to the
Eastern Museum of Motor Racing and the Latimore Valley Fairgrounds for the
Latimore Valley Fair, which includes both track time for dozens of antique race
cars and a recreated vintage auto thrill show, all free of charge (although
you’ll be encouraged by a certain announcer to play games of chance and eat a
lot in support of this awesome organization). Support this or some other
racing-related endeavor this weekend – our sport needs every one of us.
(Besides the websites
mentioned in this article, it benefitted from the resources at
Racing-Reference.info and Allan Brown’s indispensable “History of America’s Speedways, Past & Present.”)