acegear
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Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 973
Location: Enumclaw, WA
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 Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 11:45 pm Post subject: Icon: Bill France, Sr. |
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In 1934 with only $25 in his pocket, Bill France, Sr packed up his wife and small son into the family car and headed towards the warmer climate of Florida. While visiting his wifes relatives in New Smyrna Beach, word came that Sir Malcom Campbell would attempt to break the 300 mph barrier at nearby Daytona Beach. Bill decided to put down roots there, and got a job at the local Cadillac dealer.
Speed had been a part of Daytona’s life since Ransom Olds started speed runs at nearby Ormond Beach in 1902. So when the speed trials were moved to Utah, Daytona jumped on an idea for a 250 mile race incorperating the beach and a portion of highway. Sanctioned by AAA, the strictly stock race offered a purse of $5000. The 1934 Indy 500 winner Bill Cummings prevailed over the other 26 cars entered, including Bill France. Unfortunately, the race ended up loosing $20,000.00.
Convinced he could do better, Bill enlisted the help of the local Elks Club to promote another Daytona race on Labor Day weekend 1937. The race was a success! The next year Bill organized a shorter 150 mile race on July 10th, and again on Labor Day weekend, both of which made money. Knowing he was on to something, Bill organized more races over the next few years until World War 2 brought it to a screeching halt.
During the war, Bill worked at the Daytona Beach Boat Works, which built and maintained submarine chasers, and waited for peace. After the surrender of the Japanese, Bill was back promoting races in Georgia and the Carolinas. However, Bill noticed that there were dozens of sanctioning bodies that bred inconsistent rules and technical specifications. Seeing the need for a unified organization, Bill pitched his idea to AAA which wanted no part of it.
So in 1946 Bill created the National Championship Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC), which he ran out of his house. The first champion, Fonty Flock, was as shocked as anyone when Bill kept his word and paid out $3000 in post-season bonus awards that year. In those days, it was rare that a promoter didn't split with the cash, leaving the drivers with nothing. Empowered by the profitable season and his reputation for doing what he said, Bill called a meeting of drivers, promoters, friends, mechanics and lawyers in the Ebony Room of the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach on Dec. 14, 1947, and formed the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.
NASCAR almost immediately began managing and promoting races up and down the East Coast, and with success came competition. The National Stock Car Racing Organization, the United States Stock Car Racing Association, the National Auto Racing League, and the American Stock Car Racing Association were formed, each bragging that its best driver was the country's national champion. But Bill's tough-but-fair management style eventually made NASCAR a favorite among the racers.
In June 1949, in a move that showed the strength of Bill France and his organization, NASCAR ran its first Strictly Stock points race in Charlotte, N.C. This was the backyard of Olin Bruton Smith, at the time the head of the National Stock Car Racing Association--and later the owner of Charlotte Motor Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway. The 200-lap race on the 3/4-mile-long dirt track was attended by 13,000 spectators and was won by Jim Roper in a '49 Lincoln after Jim Dunnaway's 1947 Ford was disqualified for altered rear springs.
The success of that race convinced France that his Strictly Stock class would be the most popular and profitable, and the Modified Stock and Roadster classes would be less popular. Six successful races later, Red Byron, who won the Daytona Beach and Martinsville races, was declared NASCAR's first Strictly Stock champion. Lee Petty was ranked second.
Harold Brasington, an ex-racer who had competed against Bill France in the late 1930s, attended the 1948 Indianapolis 500 with 150,000 other folks. It changed his life. He returned to his hometown of Darlington, S.C., with the idea of building a speedway, but not for Indy racers. Brasington wanted to build a speedway for Bill France's Strictly Stock cars. In the fall of 1949, he bought 70 acres of one Mr. Sherman Ramsey's land, fired up a bulldozer and began shaping his dream. He envisioned an elongated oval with two identically banked and shaped turns. But Ramsey sold Brasington the land with the understanding that his beloved minnow pond at the west end of the property would not be disturbed. This forced Harold's track into an egg shape, with the eastern end wide, sweeping and flat, and the western end narrow, tight and steeply banked. With Darlington's population at the time was around 9000, Brasington decided that was how many seats he would install. With the blessing of NASCAR, he scheduled the track's first race for Labor Day weekend, 1950 which was later called it the Southern 500.
At that time, a 500-mile stock car race was unheard of and a harebrained idea to many. But Bill France helped promote the event and made it the 13th race on the 1950 Strictly Stock calendar, soon to be renamed the Grand National division. Days before the event, it was clear that 9000 seats were not enough. Every local hotel and motel sold out and Brasington opened the raceway's vast infield to give 6000 additional fans a place to sleep.
The race blew everyone away. It took race winner Johnny Mantz more than 6 hours to drive the 500 miles. That was a NASCAR record average speed of 75.250 mph.
The paved speedway was born. It quickly became a staple on the Grand National circuit, next to the traditional bullring dirt tracks of state and county fairgrounds. Dirt ovals were still the mainstay, but by the end of the decade it was clear that pavement racing was becoming more and more popular with the fans. By 1956, Bill was building his own high-banked superspeedway in Daytona, which hosted the first Daytona 500 in 1959. By 1960, the Grand National division was racing on the new 1.5-mile paved Charlotte Motor Speedway and the 1.5-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway, and by 1965 the North Carolina Motor Speedway near Rockingham was complete. Bill France built Talladega, NASCAR's fastest track, in 1969, the same year the 2.5-mile-long Michigan International Raceway was ready for racing. By the end of the 1960s, six of the 18 speedways currently on the Winston Cup schedule were open for business. The speedways, especially the superspeedways with their high-banked turns, were purpose-built cathedrals to NASCAR. They meant credibility for the sport and the beginning of big-time racing, both physically and philosophically. When members of the newly-established drivers organization, led by Richard Petty, proposed boycotting Talladega because tires might not be able to handle its 195 mile-per-hour speeds, Bill borrowed a car and did several laps at 176 miles an hour. "Surely the young pros can run 20 miles an hour faster than I can," he said, and the boycott fizzled.
By 1972, dirt tracks were history. All 31 races on the Winston Cup schedule that year were held on asphalt, which certainly made it easier on the drivers. After his retirement in 1972, Bill, Sr. was replaced by his son, Bill France Jr., but he remained active behind the scenes until his death in 1992.
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A win is a win, and second place is never good enough |
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