What If It Had Been Different Back When It All Started?
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While
helping someone else with a religion-themed story some years back, I asked a
religious scholar about an early dispute in the Christian church where the
beliefs we hold today were barely upheld in the closest of votes. I wanted to
know what he thought about the possibility that the vote might have gone the
other way, changing much of what Christians now believe.
He
said that God meant for us to believe what we believe today, and God intended for
the vote to turn out as it did, close or not.
Think
about that as I play with the possibility that auto racing as we know it today
might be very different if NASCAR had not come out on top of various challenges
to its supremacy. Maybe what we’ve had since 1948 is indeed God’s will, but
what if…
What
if Curtis Turner’s deal with the Teamsters Union, which would have let him
remain in charge of Charlotte Motor Speedway, had resulted in the union forcing
NASCAR to put driver interests first in the sport’s growth?
What
if the fiasco surrounding the first Talladega race had blown up in “Big Bill”
France’s face, and the Professional Drivers Association had become a power in
the sport?
Most
of all, what if Bruton Smith had become the sport’s chief decision-maker?
Not sure what the occasion was for this smiling
Bruton Smith photo, but it probably was NOT after he was asked about the France
family running NASCAR.
I’ll
let you speculate about the union-related possibilities and focus on the man we
associate most with Charlotte Motor Speedway, because – more than once –
history could have unfolded in a way that would have put him in a much larger
role in the sport.
NASCAR,
of course, was founded by “Big Bill” France, a Washington, D.C.-area native who
had moved to Florida and was running a gas station and driving races before
World War II. After the war, his focus turned solely to promoting, but he was
only one of several promoters vying for top-dog status in the rambunctious
world of early stock car racing. The 800-pound gorilla was AAA (the
travel/insurance people), who sanctioned the Indy 500 and just about everything
else of consequence. Fortunately for France, AAA seemingly never could make up
its mind whether it really wanted to be involved in stocks, and that lack of
commitment left the door open for others.
AAA frequently sanctioned races at Atlanta’s
Lakewood Speedway, one of the South’s premier tracks in the 1940s & ‘50s,
but its love of open-wheel racing gave others a chance to take the lead with
stock cars.
One
of those others was Bruton Smith. In fact, according to Neal Thompson’s
wonderful Driving with the Devil
history of stock car racing’s early days and NASCAR’s beginnings, Smith’s
National Stock Car Racing Association actually scheduled the first “strictly
stock” race solely for post-World War II cars, only to have France counter and
run his first race at Charlotte before Smith’s event. “Strictly Stock” is what
became Grand National/Winston Cup and then Nextel/Sprint/Monster, so that would
mean Bruton Smith actually thought of stock car racing as it has become today
before Bill France did.
Smith was just 22 when he challenged Bill
France for early stock car racing’s leadership, but this picture of him with
Fonty Flock wasn’t taken too much later.
What
if France’s counterpunch had bombed and Smith’s NSCRA had become the driving
force behind the kind of racing we know and love today (or at least used to)?
What might have unfolded differently? Would it have been better or worse?
Of
course, it didn’t turn out that way, but just over a decade later, Smith would
challenge France again. Most NASCAR history buffs – at least the older ones –
know that Smith was involved with Curtis Turner in the building of Charlotte
Motor Speedway. However that partnership was more of a shotgun wedding, at
least as it’s explained by author Robert Edelstein in his Turner biography, Full Throttle. According to Edelstein,
Turner and Smith had announced separate plans for the new Charlotte track and
only combined forces out of financial necessity.
If the early history of Charlotte Motor
Speedway had been radically different, would Bruton Smith’s role in the sport’s
leadership have been much larger?
So
again: What if? Had Smith built Charlotte alone and been successful in its
initial operation – an uncertain prospect, to be sure – might he have played a
larger role earlier in NASCAR’s growth period, and might Speedway Motorsports
somehow have ended up the dominant conglomeration of race tracks, not second fiddle
to International Speedway Corp? What if?
This
is all silly, like, “What would have happened if the South had won the Civil
War?” But with NASCAR coming off another week of plummeting TV ratings and no
indication that the pumps are turning the tide for this sinking ship, it’s hard
not to ask “What if?” Under different leadership, NASCAR might never have
gotten as big as it got, but it also might somehow have avoided its fall. We’ll
never know, but during one of those lulls in the next race you watch – and
there seem to be plenty of lulls – start that conversation and see where it
leads.
Could
be more fun than Bud Light vs. Miller Light vs. Coors Light.
Frank’s
Loose Lug Nuts
The
fascinating account of the battle for promotional supremacy in the 1940s, as told
in Driving with the Devil, has a
third figure who would revisit the NASCAR scene some years later. For much of
that time, the face of AAA in promoting Southern races was Sam Nunis, who later would promote Trenton Speedway when it
held Grand National/Winston Cup races from 1967-72. Unlike Bruton Smith though,
Nunis remained a minor character in the NASCAR world
during his later dealings with Bill France.
In 1969, Trenton was expanded from one mile to
a mile-and-a-half, but logistics dictated the lengthening give the speedway a
unique, peanut (or kidney) shape. The track was much loved by Northeastern fans
and was the site of championship modified and late model races, but it closed
in 1980.
Sam Nunis quickly
jumped on the “strictly stock” bandwagon and promoted this non-NASCAR race at
Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta near the end of the 1949 season.
Here’s a story from “Driving with the
Devil” that explains a lot, if you think NASCAR’s current attitude toward rules
has historical precedent. Neal Thompson tells of Atlanta bootlegger Gober Sosebee running a modified
race and being unable to refuel during a pit-stop because a rag got stuck in
the gas tank. Sosebee’s mechanic jumped in the
backseat of the car with a gas can, leaned out the rear window and managed to
dislodge the rag, and then filled the tank with gas, all while Sosebee was speeding around the track. Sosebee
won the race but was disqualified by France for having a passenger.
Sosebee protested, saying there was nothing in the
NASCAR rulebook that said it was illegal to have a rider in the car. France
promptly grabbed a rule book and a pen and wrote, “No riders shall be allowed
in the back…”
And
you thought things had changed.
The winner of the first-ever Strictly
Stock/Grand National/Cup race in 1949 was disqualified for having an alteration
to the car’s stock suspension (made because the car had been used in
bootlegging). How many of the rules above would have anything to do with your
“stock” car?
Last-minute addition – In my days working the
Richmond Int’l Raceway Media Center on race weekends, I came to admire the
writing of Liz Clarke, who covered NASCAR for the Washington Post (back when
the paper actually sent someone to the race). Clarke has written her take on
NASCAR’s issues and possible sale, which was published Saturday (5/19). She
puts more emphasis on the possibility that the sale could include both NASCAR and ISC, which is
interesting, but she also had this to say about the general situation:
“However
shocking, a sale of NASCAR now may be inevitable. It may be overdue. And amid
the sport’s precipitous decline, it may be the only way forward.”
That’s
a thought to ponder.