1001 NASCAR Facts. John Close
Bill France Sr. (center) and Daytona Beach mayor William Perry (left) present the 1946 National Champion Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC) season championship trophy to Ed Samples. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
103 With Atlanta’s Lakewood Speedway serving as the racing hub of Georgia, dozens of small tracks staged events in front of ever-growing numbers of enthusiastic fans in the 1940s. Unfortunately, not all competitors and fans were welcome at these events and were often denied access. Undaunted, African-American racers from around Georgia formed the Atlanta Stock Car Club (ASCC) shortly after World War II. ASCC races featured Modified Stock Cars (the same late 1930s Ford coupes that dominated southern racing at the time) and flamboyant drivers including Richard “Red” Kines, Arthur “The Decatur Express” Avery, Robert “Juckie” Lewis, and James “Suicide” Lacey. In the early 1950s, ASCC races often drew overflow crowds, many coming on organized bus tours to ensure their safety. Eventually, changing times and legal decisions such as the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court Brown versus Board of Education ruling eliminating “separate but equal” policies in schools played a large part in eliminating the need for groups such as the ASCC, which folded mid-decade.
104 Christened Truman Fontello Flock, “Fonty” delivered moonshine on his bicycle as a teenager in his native Fort Payne, Alabama. Later, Flock discovered an emerging stock car racing culture while running moonshine to Atlanta and began to compete in events throughout the south in the late 1930s. After his first big win at Lakewood Speedway in 1940, Flock’s driving career seemingly ended with a massive wreck on the beach at Daytona in 1941 which left him with head and back injuries as well as a crushed chest and broken pelvis. Flock eventually returned to racing May 5, 1947, sweeping the field by setting fast time, winning his heat, and the 30-lap National Championship Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC) main event in the first race held at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Amazingly, Flock went on to win seven 1947 NCSCC events, beating Ed Samples and Red Byron for the NCSCC season championship.
Flock won a division-high 15 Modified Division races in NASCAR’s inaugural 1948 season only to finish second to Byron in the final championship standings. In 1949, Flock won the NASCAR Modified season crown on the strength of 11 wins. That same year, he also participated in six NASCAR Strictly Stock races and finished fifth in the points. Flock’s greatest years came in the 1950s by competing in 148 NASCAR Grand National events from 1950 through 1957. His greatest season, 1951, came when he posted eight wins, 22 top-10s, 13 pole positions, and a second-place finish in the championship battle.
After another bad wreck at Daytona in 1957 (a crash that claimed the life of Bobby Myers) Flock retired from racing. He finished his career with 19 Grand National victories and one Convertible Division triumph. Fonty Flock passed away in Atlanta on July 15, 1972.
105 Colorado-born Robert “Red” Byron was one of the most unlikely heroes of post-war stock car racing. After 57 missions as tail-gunner on a B-24 bomber during World War II, Byron’s plane was shot down over the Aleutian Islands leaving him with crippling injuries to his left leg. Told he would never walk again, Byron was in military hospitals for more than two years. Byron, who had raced before the war, returned to the sport in 1946 and promptly won his first three races by anchoring his injured leg in a steel stirrup bolted to the clutch pedal. A year later, he finished third in the National Championship Stock Car Circuit championship promoted by Bill France Sr. and winning nine races in the process. Byron was all but unstoppable in 1948, winning the first NASCAR-sanctioned race at Daytona and 10 other events while posting 23 top-3 finishes to earn the inaugural NASCAR Modified championship. He went on to capture two more events and the title in NASCAR’s inaugural 1949 Strictly Stock season. Byron ran only nine NASCAR events after the 1949 championship season, retiring due to health issues in 1951. He died in 1960 at the age of 44 and in 1998, was named one of the top 50 drivers in the first 50 years of NASCAR.
Red Byron, teamed with car owner Raymond Parks and mechanic Red Vogt, captured both the 1948 NASCAR Modified title and the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock crown. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)
106 You won’t find Wilton Garrison listed among Big Bill France’s inner circle of trusted advisors, but he may have been responsible for rekindling France’s interest in creating something more than a regional racing empire. Shortly after auto racing resumed in 1945, France decided to stage a stock car race at Southern States Fairgrounds in Charlotte. France pitched it as a “national championship” race to Garrison, the sports editor of the Charlotte Observer at the time. Garrison told France that he didn’t believe you could have a national championship based on one event. If France was going to use that kind of promotion, Garrison indicated there had to be a league with a season schedule, point standings, and prize money in order to determine a national champion. Garrison’s observations left an impression on France and he incorporated many items into the formation of the NCSCC in 1946 and NASCAR in 1947.
107 Located at 140 South Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach, Florida, the Streamline Hotel today stands as the birthplace of NASCAR. The Streamline, named for its rakish art deco lines and interior themes, opened in 1941 as a four-story, 47-room marvel of the times, the first fireproof building in Daytona and the home of the city’s first bomb shelter. The lavish hotel was topped by the Ebony Room, a rooftop bar where Bill France Sr. conducted the now-famous December 14, 1947, meeting that led to the formation of NASCAR. Through the years, the Streamline fell into disrepair and disfavor as newer, bigger, and more modern beachfront hotels grabbed customers away from the dated hotel. Since then, the Streamline has served as a youth hostel, a religious retirement home, and an alternative lifestyle bar in an effort to avoid the wrecking ball. In 2014, a development group purchased the Streamline for $950,000 with the intent to restore the hotel (complete with first-floor NASCAR-themed bar) and surrounding property. The renovated hotel and grounds were scheduled to open on April 1, 2017.
Fonty Flock celebrates the 1947 National Championship Stock Car Circuit Modified Division title along with Ed Samples and Bill France Sr. in the rooftop Ebony Room bar at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)
108 After the formation of NASCAR in 1947, the company was run from Bill France Sr.’s house at 29 Goodall Avenue in Daytona Beach. Later, the company moved into its first corporate headquarters, an old bank building located at 42 Peninsular Drive in Daytona Beach. The 4,000 square foot building was built in 1920, and cost $40 per month to rent.
109 Sam Nunis traveled the country in the 1920s to learn the business of staging auto races from legendary IndyCar promoter Ralph Hankinson. Like Hankinson, Nunis concentrated on Indy-Car and open-wheel race promotion throughout his career, but he also shared Bill France Sr.’s vision of what stock car racing could be. Like France, Nunis lobbied the American Automobile Association to sanction stock car races in the 1940s. When Nunis got the cold shoulder from the AAA, he helped found the National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA) in 1946. Nunis, who conducted most of his business in the front seat of his trademark Lincoln Continental, also controlled the promotional efforts of dozens of racetracks on the East Coast, including Trenton and Lakewood Speedways. He continued to promote Trenton into the 1970s before health concerns forced him to retire in 1973. Nunis succumbed to long-term lung and heart disease in 1980.
110 Early auto racing provided little safety for drivers or fans. That played out tragically on July 25, 1948, when Slick Davis flipped his 1937 Chevrolet several times while racing at Greensboro Speedway (North Carolina) and became the first driver fatally injured in a NASCAR-sanctioned race. Tragedy struck again that same day at another NASCAR-sanctioned event in Columbus, Georgia, when Red Byron’s car blew a tire and plowed off the track into the crowd. Seven-year-old Roy Brannon was killed and 16 other people were injured. The twin fatalities had little effect on safety; real reform didn’t come until the 1950s.
111 Although NASCAR was formed in 1947 and crowned a Modified champion in 1948, it wasn’t