The Season’s Over – Time to Start Again?
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On
Sunday, October 24, 1954, Hershel McGriff (who ran a race earlier this year at
age 90) outran a field of 32 of NASCAR’s finest to win the Wilkes 160 and
conclude the Grand National schedule for the year. In 32nd place was
Lee Petty, who had fallen out after just 12 laps with wheel problems.
NASCAR in 1954 – This action was at
Jacksonville Speedway in Florida
Notwithstanding
the disappointing finish, though, Petty, his crew and his fans still had reason
to celebrate: he had won the season’s driving championship, the first of three
titles in the elder Petty’s great career. He had won at Martinsville the
previous week, so at least there was a recent victory in the books.
(Actually,
there would have been little celebration on anyone’s part that day, because
racer Lou Figaro had been killed in an accident that caused the race to be
flagged three laps from its scheduled finish.)
In
1954 there was no trip to Las Vegas for a championship banquet (and not a lot
of money for the honor, either). In fact, after a weekend off, Petty and his
fellow Grand National racers were back on the track – 1955 had come nearly two
months early as far as NASCAR was concerned.
On
November 7, 1954, the 1955 Grand National season began with a 200-lap race on
the half-mile Tri-Cities Speedway in High Point, N.C., and this time Petty had
his wheels in tip-top shape: he took the lead from Dick Rathmann on lap 7 and
led the rest of the way to claim the win.
At High Point’s Tri-Cities Speedway, eventual
winner Lee Petty starts inside of Row 2 behind pole-winner Herb Thomas.
(By
the way, Buck Baker and Herb Thomas finished second and third in both the last
1954 race and the first 1955 event, two weeks later.)
Unfortunately
for Lee Petty, the good start to the year did not result in a second
championship. Tim Flock won 18 of 1955’s 39 races to claim the title and set a
single-season victory record that would survive until Richard Petty’s 27 wins
in 1967.
That
relatively anonymous race in High Point began a period of 15 years during which
NASCAR began the Grand National schedule in the closing months of the previous
calendar year, after crowning its champion for that previous season. As many as
four races were run in November/December during that period, but one or two
were the norm (1965 had none). Some were in Florida or other warmer spots, but
a surprising number were in North Carolina, which certainly isn’t far enough
south to guarantee warm temperatures a few days before Thanksgiving.
The
last such “pre-season” race was run on November 17, 1968, when the 1969 season
opened with the Georgia 500 at Middle Georgia Raceway in Macon. Fittingly, the
winner was Richard Petty, whose dad had won the first of these oddball events
15 years and 10 days earlier. Also somewhat fittingly, it was a Petty-Pearson
finish, one of those 63 occasions when the two NASCAR greats finished one-two.
James Hylton was 10 laps behind in third.
The bookends of NASCAR’s era of starting the
season during the previous year: Lee Petty won the first such race, and Richard
Petty won the last
The
Macon 500-lapper was run twice as a November event, but most of the early
season Grand National stops during that 15-year period weren’t major races. In
the mid-‘50s, two somewhat larger events were held at the Willow Springs road
course in California (it still exists), but in those days relatively few tour
regulars ventured that far, and the fields were largely West Coast drivers.
Sadly, Middle Georgia Raceway is another track
long closed and slowing fading back to dust.
In
1964, a 510-mile race was scheduled at the then-new Augusta International
Raceway road course in Georgia. It was a disaster, flagged nearly 100 miles
early because of darkness and never held again (the course is still
commemorated but long gone). For the record, Fireball Roberts won the race over
road-racing specialist and temporary Holman-Moody teammate Dave MacDonald.
The ill-fated Augusta road course
It’s
hard to say why, in those days, these races were scheduled, but probably it
reflected NASCAR’s desire for as many sanctioning fees as possible. The races
certainly didn’t register with many people other than local fans and the
diehards amongst us elsewhere. Today, though, it might be different, with
television and internet coverage possible, so the question comes up:
Could
we run races like this again?
The
biggest challenge is squeezing anything else into today’s tour, given the
complexity of building and maintaining the cars. However, if NASCAR could see
the light and move back toward less expensive (and rule-strangled) STOCK
car racing, it could happen, and there might be an audience, including
those of us who long for the old ESPN winter series or something to do other
than football between Homestead and Daytona. Maybe new fans who don’t fall into
the NFL-is-everything mindset could actually learn to love what we love.
Here’s
a quick idea for my off-season: Have a
six-race NASCAR series that might or might not have some points
relationship to the Cup Series. The races are one-day shows with TV supplying
financial support, and they could be structured so that all three NASCAR
“premier” traveling circuits would take part, but each driver/team would only
run two or three times, since fields wouldn’t need to be large. One possible
schedule (using 2018-19 dates):
December 1 – Bakersfield Speedway or
Perris Auto Speedway (both California dirt tracks).
December 8 – Tucson Speedway, Ariz.
(paved).
December 15 – New Smyrna Speedway,
Fla. (paved).
January 12 – Five Flags Speedway,
Fla. (paved).
January 19 – Circuit of the
Americas, Texas (road course).
January 26 – The Bullring at Vegas,
Nev. (dirt)
(Bonus
Substitution: Replace one of the Florida
races with an event at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, where full-sized dirt
late models have already raced indoors.)
Road racing at the Circuit of the Americas
already has included cars that are closer to “stock” than anything NASCAR would
bring
OK,
first off, all crews please accept my apologies for taking away your off-season
– I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think it would help the overall health of a
failing sport. Second, my identity will change completely before this is
published, so that Bruton & Eddie can’t hunt me down for suggesting a
NASCAR race at the uber-enemy Circuit of the Americas complex.
Will
this happen? Of course not. Could it offer fans off-season entertainment and
perhaps pick up some new fans for a sport that desperately needs them? I’ll say
as I have before, my suggestions are made with the admission that I have no
skin in the game and no money to lose should they actually be tried and fail,
but I do believe there’s something here that could be beneficial.
I
don’t think my idea’s a turkey, but I’ll wish you Happy Thanksgiving, anyway.
No “Loose Lug Nuts” this week, other than the
photo below, which shows another alternative for winter racing. (I used to own
a Toyota Echo and love seeing one leading this pack. If only I’d had that
opportunity back then…)
