[h=2]In RACER's Great Teams III Issue: Stronger Together[/h] Wednesday, 22 June 2016


Tom Jensen
Hendrick Motorsport's rise and rise into a multi-car NASCAR powerhouse didn't follow any well-laid plans. Trial and error, plus an emphasis on teamwork, took it to its lofty heights.


Hendrick Motorsports kicked off the 2016 NASCAR season in January the way it starts every season: with a meeting of all 600 or so employees at the team's state-of-the-art 430,000sq.ft. campus near Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Led by the team's founder and owner Rick Hendrick, all of the drivers, crew chiefs, pit crew members, engine builders, administrative assistants, janitors and everyone else who works there held hands as Hendrick chanted the team's two word mantra: "Stronger together!" The team members followed suit, chanting again and again and again until "Stronger together!" built to a thunderous crescendo.
Stronger together. Two words. Two simple, crisp and utterly unambiguous words. Coming from the mouth of the charismatic Hendrick, those two words have formed the core philosophy that so far has produced a record 11 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships and more than 240 race victories since 1984.
But getting to this point was anything but simple or quick.
Hendrick launched his NASCAR team in 1984 with Geoff Bodine, and when Folgers asked Hendrick to field a second car for Tim Richmond in 1986, he happily obliged. Little did he know what he was getting into.
"I think the reason I did it was sharing best practices in the automobile business, and I felt like both of them were good drivers," says Hendrick. "You got two good crew chiefs, two good drivers and a sponsor, we could learn from each other. It took me quite a few years to get the guys in racing to believe that, but that's why I did it."
And in 1987, Hendrick added Tide and Darrell Waltrip in a third car, with Benny Parsons replacing Richmond after he got sick. Only one problem: Hendrick didn't own a three-car NASCAR team. He owned three one-car teams that for all intents and purposes operated as independent entities.
"When you start with multiple teams and multiple buildings, they kind of have their own mentality," says Chad Knaus, the six-time championship crew chief for Hendrick driver Jimmie Johnson. "It's tough to get everybody working together. There were three distinctly different crew chiefs with three distinctly different teams and three distinctly different drivers."
Ken Howes, a South African who joined Hendrick in the mid-1980s to lead the owner's IMSA GTP program and was a Sprint Cup crew chief with the team, concurs with that assessment.
"Rick tried, but it was difficult just because of the circumstance and where the sport was and the personalities involved," says Howes. "It was tough to do."
One of the complicating factors of the early days was that NASCAR allowed teams a much greater degree of leeway in the rules as far as how they built their cars – a bigger box to work in, per NASCAR vernacular – and crew chiefs all built their cars differently. And they all wanted to do it their own way.
Working together "is hard to do when you want to keep your own intellectual property and your own way of doing things that works for you," says Jim Wall, Hendrick's director of engine engineering.
Hendrick, to his credit, began standardizing how the teams operate. HMS made its first in-house chassis in 1987 – it recently built its 1,000th Sprint Cup chassis – and gradually consolidated physical locations and manufacturing, so the same people built the cars and engines in the same location for all four drivers and teams.
"It's been trial and error," Hendrick says. "We've made some mistakes. I used to have the teams in totally different locations. Then I moved them to the same complex. Then into the same building."
None of this came easily. HMS used eight different full-time drivers between 1986-'94 and didn't win a championship until its 12th full-time season, when Jeff Gordon finally broke through, leading a run of four consecutive Hendrick titles between Gordon and Terry Labonte from 1995-'98.

 

Racing in Wisconsin early 60's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qrbq0sGIW0

 

Interveiw with JIMMY MOSTELLER - by Harold Reeves
Sunday, June 8, 2003

JM: There's so much that we could talk about in racing, but I'm gonna have to tell you.....this River Bend Museum that JB Day and Willovene have - and so much help they've had to really fix up this place is absolutely unreal. I've been in a lot of museums over the country but the pictures he's got on every wall here, I think, is something that every racing person-male, female, whatever it might be-it's worth their time to come here to see it. I believe you'd agree with me.

HR: I would. I certainly would. I was commenting earlier to another fellow, I've never been anywhere in my life that had more photos and memories of the past in any one location than right here.

JM: It's right here, and look at all these restored racecars that they've got. I don't know anywhere that you can go to at this time and come to a museum that's got... what are we looking at? Maybe 15 cars out there.

HR: At least. And JB's wife told me this morning that he assigned one man to do a car, and it would take between 9 and 13 months.

JM: Well, there's one, I understood, that took-Dilbert Gober (Sosebez) car-took about 14, 15 months and they worked on it five, six days a week, but we've got to give a lot of compliments, lot of credit to Mr. Day and his crew that he's got up here. Years ago, he used to ride a bicycle from Easley, South Carolina, all the way to Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta to see the races there and then he'd get a ride back with Cotton Owens or somebody like that.

HR: Is that the bicycle that's inside, that's been restored?

JM: From what I have heard, that is the bicycle that he rode from up here all the way to Lakewood to see the drivers run there. So it's wonderful that we have people that are so interested in racing that they will do what he's done and made the investment he's made, but what I like most about right here is not the past 40 years in racing, but we go back into the late '30s, the '40s.... pictures on the wall showing how racing really started. And that's what we.... the Georgia Automobile Racing Hall of Fame Association as well as LLOAR is most interested in. We're trying to bring back the past and put it in print, put it on tape, that the race fans of today can look at those things and see where racing started.... really, on the short tracks, the dirt tracks in this country.

HR: Jimmy, let me ask you something, 'cause I was 11 years old when my father took me to Macon, Georgia, to the Central Georgia Fairground and the racetrack there by the ball stadium. The year was 1951 and you were calling the races, I remember.

JM: Central City Park in Macon, and you mentioned the fairgrounds. See, that's where we used to run.... was the fairgrounds over the country. Same thing in the Carolinas, same thing in Alabama. In fact, they still have an asphalt track now at the fairground in Birmingham. But there's one thing for certain. We love to go back where it started and where it's come to today.

I was telling somebody at breakfast this morning that, when they first built Jeffco Speedway at Jefferson, Georgia, just out of Jefferson, we ran a Grand National, which is called Winston, of course, now run a Grand National race there. The purse was about $5,000. Cale Yarborough won it. Well, he was another generation of drivers coming along at that time, but in the top eight or ten drivers, I'd say, it started at maybe a hundred dollars and went up to a thousand dollars. Cale won a thousand dollars. But the men from there back that was in the race....they didn't get a whole lot, maybe enough to get home and maybe not enough. Some of them had tore up their racecars.

The sad part about it is, in the early days there was no money. I remember at Lakewood Speedway when you used to pay two dollars to get into the fairgrounds at Lakewood. Then if you sat in the cement grandstand they had, you'd pay an extra dollar and a half. Three dollars and a half to get in the grandstand at Lakewood. That's the reason all the hills were filled up with race fans from over the country. They could afford the two dollars but they couldn't afford the buck and a half.

Georgia, had three racetracks. Dalton had two. Boyd Speedway at Chattanooga, and one at Chickamauga. Then you drop down South coming back toward Atlanta. This is just an example of the racetracks. I used to work three to five races a week in the State of Georgia. We'd run Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, and Sunday night. I'd do a Sunday afternoon show and then I'd come to the Peach Bowl on Sunday night. This is the way over a period of, say, 50 years in racing that we just sort of "guestimated" or estimated that I had done from 2,500 to 3,000 races in my lifetime.

And I'm honored and pleased to be inducted into the National Dirt Track Late Model Racing Hall of Fame in Kentucky. I was honored to be inducted into the Hall of Fame at Dawsonville. That is the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame, Thunder Road USA. I'm elated over the fact that you have invited me to join the Living Legends, of Racing out of Daytona Beach, Florida. Ray Fox headed this thing up, you see, so I'm thrilled to the fact that I have been a part in my lifetime of the greatest sport in the world, automobile racing.

HR: Jimmy, would you take a moment to pick one or two of the highlights of your lifetime career in calling races and something that was very exciting that happened to you along the way. Could you describe something for us like that?

JM: Well, there's been so many things. I've always been one that says.....well, back years ago, we didn't have a lot of racecars, as you know, but it was up to the announcer to make a show out of it. I've said all my life that racing is show business along with racing.

And I don't have to say to the world or to anybody.... the hardest sport in the world is driving a racecar, because those drivers not only have to drive them, but back years ago, they had to build their engines; they had to build their transmission; then they'd go to a racetrack and, if something happened, if somebody got them in the wall, and there's a lot of that going on, or they were going over an embankment somewhere, like you were talking about the fairgrounds in Macon, Georgia, Central City Park there.... they'd go over an embankment out into the fields.

Go back to another track that was right downtown Atlanta, Brady Avenue, Peach Bowl Speedway. Now you talk about beating and banging. That's what you had at the Peach Bowl, but the drivers that run there, they were the future in automobile racing. We've got some of those drivers here with us. In fact, I'm looking right now at Jack Jackson and Charlie Mincey and so many drivers out of the Georgia area. That was tough down there. Jack Smith was tough. Roscoe Thompson, so many great drivers that raced on the short tracks, and then all of a sudden, back in late '49 and into the '50s, tracks started springing up at every crossroad, I believe, or every little town in the Rome Georgia.

We had one track at Gainesville, Georgia. Now, there's a town that had three racetracks.... Looper Speedway, and then they had the Gainesville Speedway, Lanier Raceway, and so many tracks around, and then you had them at Cornelia, had them at Toccoa, but for the excitement of racing, when Ed Samples, Gober Sosebee, you see it one time.

Jerry Wimbish, that's a driver we don't want to leave out, out of the Georgia area. I'm more familiar with drivers in Georgia and the Carolina drivers that used to come down, the Virginia drivers, the Florida drivers, you name it, Alabama drivers. I remember when one time there was a driver out of Hialeah, Florida, a guy named Bobby Allison, and Red Farmer, those guys came out of Florida, and they finally made their home in Hueytown, Alabama.

I'm not really answering the question you asked me as to the excitement. I'll just have to put it this way. It was up to the announcer to make some excitement out of every race that I've ever been to. That's one thing that I've tried to do. One of the writers in Atlanta wrote an article in the ATLANTA JOURNAL so stating that you don't know the drivers without Mosteller. That was a compliment, and I still appreciate it. I have a copy of it. And now they're wanting to write a book on my life and Jones and Eddie Samples. A lot of these people are asking me. And I'm gonna give the time to do that. And as for the excitement of racing, I've seen some bad things happen, and I don't like to kind of go over the bad things in life. There's been so much good to overshadow it with.

And the driver from Jacksonville.... I'm trying to think of his name. Lost his life at Lakewood. There was a number of drivers that lost their life at Lakewood because the track was a horse track, to start out with. It was another fairground, but I saw two drivers, two great drivers, a fellow by the name of Bob Flock that you would know well.

HR: Yes.

JM: Bob one of the Flock Brothers, was following Wilbur Rakestraw going up the back straightaway at Lakewood and, bang, it was so dusty, he was following Wilbur, and they went off the track and Bob though, I guess, he was still on the track, but both of them went into a cess pond or, actually.... well, they've got another name for it, but I won't use it.... where their sewage would go to. That was Lakewood Speedway, the Indianapolis, we used to bill it, of the South. That was when Langhorn Speedway and Lakewood were 2 of the largest tracks in the country.

I'll never forget when they first opened Darlington. They were blowing tires up there. It sounded like the Fourth of July, because drivers going that quick on an asphalt track, they were blowing tires.

A fellow by the name of Red Byron, was driving a Cadillac for Raymond Parks. He has done so much for this sport that why we are here to honor him today. He would drive right up against the retaining wall at Darlington. There was a reason, he told us, for that. He said, "Well, if you pull a right front tire, then you're not down in the center of the track and go up and hit the retaining wall head on," and those kind of barriers. And today, some of the drivers are still doing that, but Goodyear, Firestone, and other people that's built racecars for a lot of years, they're building a better tire. They're building a racing tire that can stand up to a lot, but still they have a lot of trouble with tires. But they change them so often, so frequently in their pit stops, today, they've got that down pat. Anytime you go into the pits, they can change four tires in 14 to 17 seconds, not actually change the tire, but put another wheel on those cars. Hey, that is really getting it to perfection. I give the Wood Brothers credit for inventing that when they made their first trip to Indianapolis.

HR: Now, let's go back to Lakewood a moment. Coming out of two, wasn't there a soft spot over there caused by that lake and the drainage and everything? And the drivers had a tendency to pull in, drop down coming out of two or a shortcut around that curve, and they got their left front wheel into that soft spot.

Listen, Ernie Moore and Alf Knight two more people that did a lot for the sport of automobile racing. Ernie Moore was with NASCAR, and then I joined NASCAR, but I couldn't travel all over the country, since I worked for a company for.... well, I spent my life with them. That was the Hav-A-Tampa Cigar Company out of Tampa, Florida. I worked for them..... well, I'm still working for them even though there's no more Hav-A-Tampa. But Ernie Moore and myself, we'd go to Boyd Speedway, like on Friday night. We'd be at the Peach Bowl on Wednesday night. We'd be somewhere else maybe on Thursday night. We were trying to get the tracks organized enough that everybody wasn't running the same night, because that splits up not only your spectators; it splits up your racecars.

JM: Well, the thing is this. The reason they were doing that....if you remember at Lakewood. I remember it well, that, running over a hundred miles an hour on a track, that was not only rough but also very dusty. They tried everything from calcium, you name it, on Lakewood, but after a few laps you had the same condition. But they would set their cars as they'd come by the grandstand to go in the number one turn. As they started off in number two, they would call what "they'd pinch a corner." They would pinch that corner, knowing they were gonna drift out a little bit, but if they got down in the loose stuff close to the lake there, then they'd lose the car. That's one reason Lakewood was so dangerous. Then you go up the back straightaway, you get the number three and four turn. They had holes in those turns that honest to goodness Les Snow with the old Midwest Association of Racecars hit that cement retaining wall right up there where all those people sit, and that was the worst accident I believe that Les ever had.

But Lakewood was a show track and it was up to the announcer, as I alluded earlier, to make a show out of it, whether it was Lakewood, whether it was the Peach Bowl, whether it was one of the short tracks of the country. The announcer had to make a show out of it. One announcer wrote once, how many times at the Peach Bowl I might make this statement. He liked to lost it"; "He almost got in that number four turn." Things like that.

And then as he'd come off the number four and I'd make this statement: "Man, he really knew what he was doing"; "He corrected it beautiful and didn't get in the retaining wall." The announcer wrote that for a reason. He says, "Mosteller is gonna keep your attention," and that's what I wanted to do.

HR: That you certainly did. You really did. I've got one other individual I want to ask you about, and I'm sure you remember him and worked with him. Ernie Moore, the starter and flag man.

That's the reason, Bill France, when he was in Atlanta and Ernie Moore were a great part of it; Alf Knight was the general manager for a long time of the Atlanta International Raceway. That's before it became Atlanta Motor Speedway. But Ernie Moore was my close friend. He and his wife and a fellow by the name of George DeLong..... I don't know whether you know him or not.... one of the best starters in the business. Worked with NASCAR for years. He, Ernie, and myself.... we traveled all over the country.

And then a few years down the road, we had a number of racing associations in the Atlanta area, but a gentlemen by the name of John Cabaness started SRE, or the Southern Racing Enterprise, and we were racing throughout the Southeast.

But there comes old Rex White. I wish people that'll be listening to this would realize the number of race drivers that come right here to this River Bend Racing Museum. In fact, we'll have about fifty of them lined up here after a while. This is history. And I don't mean to be repeating myself, but I'm proud to be a part of the history of this sport, and I'm of the opinion. But I was talking a few minutes ago about when Bill France come into the Peach Bowl Speedway in Atlanta, I think he was going under Bill France Enterprise at that time. In fact, that's when they started organizing a sanction body. Back in those days, it was strictly stock.

HR: Now, are you going back to '46 or '47?

JM: Forty-seven. When Bill France was there. I don't know what we're doing here, but I can't help but mention some drivers. Now, yonder's one of the best drag racing men in the country, right yonder. Hubert Platt, what he did for the sport of drag racing, and he's a member of our association. In fact, on the board. We're doing everything night and day that we can, just as you are, Harold, to let people know what's going on in automobile racing, for a lot of years.

And getting back to Bill France....see I'm jumping. Please forgive me. But when Bill France first organized at that point in time in a 25- or 30-mile radius of Atlanta, there were, I'll say, 20 to 30 of the top race drivers in the country. I'm talking about the three Flock brothers, a fellow by the name of Jeff Brogdan, Eddie Samples or Ed Samples. Then you had Red Byron; you had Lloyd See, Roy Hall, and so many great drivers. And that's the reason sometimes I hate to mention any driver because I would love to tell the world about every driver that every drove a racecar, because they were part of the show.

HR: Now, let me ask you....you mentioned earlier about a book. When can we expect to see this book sitting on the stand at Barnes & Noble or someplace like that?

JM: Well, I don't know. At the present time, Ann Jones is writing a book on Rex White and as soon as she gets through with that, I'll either go with Ann or go with someone that I can sit down with, like you and I are doing right now. Talking about the past. Give them my opinion and my history on the sport of automobile racing, and there's so many good announcers. They are part of the show so they, too, need to be mentioned in these books, or even a book on themselves. See, I've been, in my 50-plus years, this is my 55th year in it. I've been a promoter, co-promoter, co-owner of racecars. I sort of stood at the hind side or the back side of being a car owner because it was bad for an announcer to own a racecar that was competing against the other drivers, so I sort of stayed on the back side of it.

But to help us get more cars.... and to give an example.... I remember one time when we went to a track here in South Carolina, and it rained all the way from Atlanta up here and when we got there, we only had seven racecars. Seven racecars. So we would have a couple or three more cars. A racecar driver by the name of Neil Roberts, who was a flagman, he said.... he was driving, I think, about a '54 Chrysler.... he said, "I'll put a number on my car." In fact, you can remember.... or I can remember the days, and possibly you can.... that the numbers you see on race cars today. They used to carry a bottle....even I did....carry a bottle of white paint and black paint. If the car was black, dark in color, we'd go out there a put a number on it. So we would add our own personal cars in the field so that we'd have a few more cars.

But we would let the race fans know, "Our field, due to the excessive rain, we'd been out of Atlanta, is not as large as we had expected, but we're going to put you on a show." So what we would do, we would make a show out of it. We would run, say, all seven cars, or nine cars at that particular race, and when that heat was over, then we'd invert them. Whoever won it would start in the back. As I stated a moment ago, we'd make a show out of it. We'd even ask the race fans. If you'd like to go racing, you can do it right now because there's not a whole lot of cars here, and who knows how well you might be." These are the show business things that I'm talking now.

HR: If I remember correctly.... and you brought this to my mind.... that happened to Lee Petty in Charlotte. They had had a cloudburst, and they asked anybody in the audience that had a car that wanted to get out and help dry the track, please get on the track. And he enjoyed that so much, he entered the race. And I think he had a Buick Roadmaster that day and totaled that car out.

JM: I wasn't gonna tadpole... Neal is dead, but I wasn't gonna say this, but when they brought him out to qualify, he went in the number one turn and he flipped that Chrysler the worst you've ever seen. He made a flip, but it wasn't damaged so badly that he wanted to take.... he wanted to qualify that car.

HR: This was Neal who?

JM: Neal Roberts. He was a driver, he was a flagman, same way with Jerry Wimbish. Jerry could do anything. From announce, flags, start, you name it. And so Neal got qualified to get in the race with the car and at that time we picked up another flagman. Since he was gonna be the flagman, we picked up somebody out of the stands and taught him how to use the flags. But that's the reason that today I make every race fan, if they want to talk to me on a mike, part of the show. And the little children.... I can go to Dixie Speedway or Rome Speedway and the little children.... "Is Uncle Jimmy gonna be there?" They're gonna line up 'cause they know Uncle Jimmy will talk to them. I used to do that at the Peach Bowl.

HR: Jimmy, it's been a pleasure talking with you this morning at the River Bend Museum owned by J.B. Day and his wife.

We've been interviewing Jimmy Mosteller, definitely a living legend of his time, the Voice of the South. Thank you so much.

This is Harold Reeves, and it's Sunday, June 8, 2003.

 

Interview with Brice Stultz - by Harold Reeves
Monday February 10, 2003
In front of the Living Legends Museum in Holly Hill Florida, located 3 miles from Daytona International Speedway and 12 miles from the worlds most famous Speedway (The Old Road Course) and the Worlds most famous beach, Daytona Beach, FL. It all began one day in 1955 for this gentleman on the north turn of the old road course that was 4.35 miles. They had a lot of fun down there and these are forgotten memories. This gentleman has taken his time to sit with use and talk awhile. His Name is Brice Stultz (nickname, Spider) from Collinsville Virginia.

Brice: I started racing when I was 19 years old, bought a 39 Ford standard coupe and it took us about 2 years to get enough money to get to where we could run it. Going on from there matter of fact we were racing maybe a couple of races before Glen Wood came on the scene. Glen was an exceptionally good competitor and boy he jumped from beginning to go racing in a hurry. He was good at what he did, and then it proved that through the years that he was an exceptionally good driver, and did well in racing.

Looking back I have pictures of the first race Glen ran in. I talked to him, we had a lot of thinking back time, good days you know of time gone by.

Incidentally, when we brought the car down from Martinsville VA we towed it with a 46 Dodge, 6-cylinder pickup. That's how we brought our tools and equipment and we towed the vehicle. It took all night long to get here. The next morning we stopped at the Steak & Shake for breakfast around 8:30am, then we went down to the beach, we were late for time trials so we had to start in the rear. From by best recollection we started 83rd in the total back, we were so far back it was unreal. As the race went on we managed to pass a lot of cars, we got on up in the pack pretty good. Then on the last lap I got in the soft sand and sloped over on the edge of the south turn and had to jump out and run to get to safety. The race was over and we finished 49th, passed quite a few cars but I had to be 20 or 30 cars ahead of when I finished, but that's another old story.

Harold: Now coming to the black top on the beach, (today it is know as A1A) about what kind of speed were you guys running? Brice: The average speed I believe I'm right on that, we had to be running 100 to 110 mph. I don't think we ran 125 or 130 mph because that was unheard of in those days. The car ran real well but we got so much momentum coming down the black top it was hard to slow down coming into the south turn, turn 1.

Harold: What was it like when you hit that sand going into turn 1 and you would be running, what about 55 or 60 mph?

Brice: Yes I think that was about right. You would have about a handful trying to keep traction and not do what I did and get into the soft sand. When you got into the soft sand you just could not steer it, like running in deep snow you just couldn't control it.

Harold:But how about the sand and the wind when you got on the beach and going north? Bet that held you back a little bit didn't it?

Brice: Well the wind would hold you back, but if you got out in the water is was as hard as asphalt and that was no problem. The biggest problem you had was somebody throwing sand up on windshield and sand getting in your car and creating a little whirl wind in there. It would get in your ears, up your nose and in your eyes. But we could not fault someone for that because we had plastic shields over all our windows to keep the sand out of our way. We pick up on that because we had been there quite a few years as spectators you know and that was really not a problem, the biggest problem I had was sand would get on the windshield and pack so hard that you could not scrap it off to see where you were going, it was just terrible.

Harold: What was it like getting ready to go into the north turn?

Brice: That was also hard slowing down because a lot of cars would do a 360 there because they were running so fast that if your brakes were not just right they would lock them and just do a 360 on the sand before you would go on to the north turn, you would have to stop and back up to get back to racing. I didn't have any problem with that, the biggest problem I had was coming off the sand onto the asphalt we were afraid we were going to snap and axle. We only had one axle and we would hit that pavement and if you didn't hit it straight on you would snap an axle. But we didn't have any problem with that, so that worked out very well.
Harold: Now what month was this race held and what was it like a nice sun shining day?

Brice: Well it was in February, Friday the 25th. The sun was good, it was not a hot day, and it was a little overcast. , A good day for racing.

Harold: You started 83rd?

Brice: That's right.

Harold: What was it like trying to pass some of those cars; it had to be worse than any interstate driving we do today?

Brice: Well really the car ran well and I was able to pass who ever I came up on and would pass them right and left. We started in the back, slow cars started in the back and my car ran well and I did not have any trouble passing.

Harold: Now what month was this race held and what was it like a nice sun shining day?

Brice: Well it was in February, Friday the 25th. The sun was good, it was not a hot day, and it was a little overcast. , A good day for racing.

Harold: You started 83rd?

Brice: That's right.

Harold: What was it like trying to pass some of those cars; it had to be worse than any interstate driving we do today?
Harold, Fireball, Curtis Turner, Lee Petty,

Brice: yes Buck Baker The Thompson boys,

Harold: Speedy and Al,

Brice, yaw they were really a threat mater-a-fact, they did win they won. Banjo Mathews. I wish I could bring them all to mind.

Harold: Now who were some of the officiators that day, I know Bill France Sr. was there?

Brice: Johnny Brunner, Sr., Joe Epton, I worked with Joe quite a few years after that Daytona race.

Harold: You were how old?

Brice: I ranged from 20 to 23 years old, had a job that didn't pay much money and had my head set on having a race car and I put everything I could put my hands on into it.

Harold: At the time you were service manager at The Ford place in Martinsville?

Brice: No I got that job when I went home from Daytona in the first of March in 1955. I got a job there as service manager, when I went there they had about 17 mechanics. Not counting the body shop, not counting the parts people and the used car people. We had a good line, when I left there 22 years later we had 46 people in the service department, we had a good operation.

Brice: Well really the car ran well and I was able to pass who ever I came up on and would pass them right and left. We started in the back, slow cars started in the back and my car ran well and I did not have any trouble passing.

Harold: Now some of the historical names of that year understand were the Flock boys,
Bob, Fonty and Tim, yes

Harold: Now you were driving what year model Ford on the beach:

Brice: A 1937 Ford that I have today.

Harold: Is it a coupe?

Brice: It is a 2 door flat back.

Harold: How many horsepower would you say you had that day?

Brice: You know I don't know how to rate it, nobody had an engine larger in cubic inches than we had, I don't think. The 55 Chevrolet, the 52/53 Oldsmobile were coming out at that time and they had fast engines but really we were lucky enough to run with them and sometimes we would out run them.

Harold: That was a good size Ford agency for its day.

Brice: It really was, we rated the Richland Motor Company, and Magic City Ford in Roanoke, and we always were 2nd and 3rd in service operation.

Harold: This was in Martinsville so did you ever see anything of Clay Earls?

Brice: Know him well, knew him very well before he went into the racing game, before the war, World War II. Knew him after the war, and serviced his cars quite frequently. He had some fast cars in those days; we serviced them and knew the people who drove for him. When they weren't driving for him they were racing on the racetrack, people like Gordon Mangrem and some of those guys. Clay kept good fast running cars, he really had fast cars.

Brice: A 1950 Ford Station Wagon, my brother took his mattress off his double bed and put it in the back and we slept on it at night. We were down on A1A where the Sheraton Hilton Motel is today. We pulled into the campgrounds there and next to us came Wendell Scott a colored drive from Danville, VA. We knew him and race with him 2 or 3 time a week and he was a good guy, I really enjoyed Wendell.

Harold: What was your car number?

Brice: 24X

Brice: Ya, I came down the black top went into the first turn, the south turn, went into fast and just couldn't control it and got into the soft sand and had to jump out and run to keep from someone running into me maybe hurt me. I had no problem; someone could have run into me, but it didn't happen. Those pictures on the wall there are exactly what happened. It was exciting there for a few minutes. The race was over and it was the last lap that I got hung up. In that particular race I finished 49th started 83rd, I had to be quite a few places up ahead of 49th to finish were I finished that day. That was the sportsman race on Friday February the 25th.

Harold: Down here at the Living Legends Museum, this race is pictured on the wall we have snap shots and this car went off the second turn, do you want to describe that?


Harold: So tomorrow when we go to the beach will it be like old home week and bring back a lot of memories because the car you are bring to the beach is the same car that you ran in 1955?

Brice: That's right, I hung on to it all these years and had it 10 years before I decided to refurbish it and get it going again and it turned out very well we think. It's a good-looking car in our opinion. Looks good, runs good and we are very proud of it.

Harold: We want to thank you for taking the time today to stop by the museum and give us this bit of history. We are going to try and get this in our Canonball. The Interviewer here is Harold Reeves and again thank you very much and hope you have a good time in the Daytona Beach Area, and a safe trip back to Virginia.
by Harold Reeves
Monday February 10, 2003

 

reserved

 

Links tying some racing history together:
see last post in thread

 

NASCAR: Hall of Famer Lorenzen to donate brain

Wednesday, 20 July 2016


RACER Staff / Images by ISC Archives via Getty Images, Getty Images
Fred Lorenzen, a 2015 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee (pictured at the induction ceremony below) and one of the sport's first superstars, is following modern-day star Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s pledge to donate his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation, spurred by his battle with dementia. His decision makes him the second known driver besides Earnhardt to announce his brain donation.

Lorenzen, 81, is the winner of the 1965 Daytona 500 and World 600 and owns the fifth-highest winning percentage (16.86) in NASCAR history, having amassed 26 wins from 1961-67. According to his daughter, Amanda Lorenzen Gardstrom, he has a few moments when he remembers his career, and his "face just lights up" when he visits Chicago Speedway, which is not far from the assisted living facility where he lives. But she told the Associated Press she is convinced Lorenzen has CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) as a result of wrecks and hits during his career.
"The hardest part right now is that his racing memories are starting to go," Gardstrom said. "That was the one thing that was really wonderful, to connect and see him light up when he talked about racing."
Gardstrom was moved by Earnhardt's decision, which he announced in March.
"As a family, we decided we wanted to support Dale Junior and all work together toward a healthy future for these drivers," she told AP. "He never stopped to heal."
Earnhardt will now miss at least three races, including last weekend at New Hampshire, as he recovers from concussion-like symptoms that surfaced before the July 9 race at Kentucky. In addition to not receiving clearance, Earnhardt stressed he wanted to take his recovery slowly, follow his doctors' advice and "try to learn as much as I can to be smarter and wiser."
Gardstrom echoed those sentiments right before Earnhardt announced he would miss the New Hampshire race. Her father first showed signs of dementia about a decade ago, and she told AP that her father and his family want to help NASCAR advance knowledge of concussions and how to treat them.
"It's the younger generation that we really need to educate," she said. "They're young, they're hungry, but when they get in a wreck and get a concussion, they know if they don't get back in the car, someone else is going to take it. We want to change the culture of the sport."
NASCAR introduced mandatory baseline concussion testing in 2014, two years after Earnhardt missed two races as the result of a pair of concussions.
"We don't have to wait until more drivers' brains are studied to make a better concussion protocol," she said. "No money is going to bring my dad back, but what my goal now is, is to make sure the NASCAR family doesn't have to go through the similar things we're going through now."
Earnhardt revealed his plans to donate his brain shortly after he retweeted a link to a story about three former Oakland Raiders players who plan to donate their brains for CTE research in honor of Ken Stabler. Stabler, who played in the NFL through the 1970s and into the mid-1980s, died of cancer last year, and after his death doctors discovered that he had suffered from Stage 3 CTE.
"What use is it [your brain] to you at that point?' Earnhardt tweeted in response to a fan's comment that the ex-Raiders players' decision was a 'big commitment.' "I'm gonna donate mine.'"

 

[h=2]WEAVER: Rescuing the Brickyard[/h] Monday, 25 July 2016


Matt Weaver / Images by LAT
At this point, it feels like piling on, but certain aspects of the Super Weekend at the Brickyard must to be addressed.

Actually, it's technically not the Super Weekend anymore, and hasn't been since sports cars left in 2014. But it wasn't really "super" to begin with unless it was used as a superlative – as in super-tedious, super-boring or super-redundant.
But first, let's establish that the Brickyard 400 itself will never consistently be an exciting race, at least, not in the traditional NASCAR sense. Differing pit strategies (like the one Team Penske tried to employ on Sunday) can sometimes provide intrigue, but the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval just isn't designed for 3,000 pound stock cars.
But that doesn't mean the weekend is without merit.
The Sprint Cup race, despite all of its flaws, should still be considered a Grand Slam on the NASCAR calendar. It's a race at the greatest speedway in the universe with winners joining the likes of A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Dale Earnhardt.
From a pure NASCAR standpoint, the Brickyard 400 could be viewed as the single greatest test of an organization on the calendar. With long straights and challenging corners, Indianapolis has become a show of who's built the fastest car over the course of the season.
Passing is at a premium and track position is hugely important, magnifying put stops and pit road decisions. Unlike a restrictor plate race, for example, one doesn't luck their way into the most hallowed Victory Lane in motorsports. The list of those whom have conquered this race largely reflect that notion.
And yet, all the admiration and reverence for this cathedral of speed wasn't enough to save it from the lowest attendance figures yet, estimated to be near 50,000 according to the Indianapolis Star and Sports Business Journal.
The Brickyard 400 isn't something that NASCAR can fix. The $30 million lights proposal isn't realistic, nor is moving the event to September to kick off the Chase for the Championship. But the entire weekend needs a dramatic overhaul, and with the main event likely to remain as is, that leaves the Indiana 250 Xfinity Race or whatever it was called on Saturday afternoon.
The current Brickyard weekend is a snapshot of what NASCAR has become at the highest levels, having consolidated all three national tours under a largely carbon-copied schedule. The July weekend at Indiana used to be a destination event for motorsports enthusiasts of all kinds, with USAC, ARCA, Trucks, Xfinity and Cup all running events across the region.
NASCAR had a great thing going at Lucas Oil Raceway, the track formerly known as Indianapolis Raceway Park, and the Truck and Busch Series was every bit the draw that the prestigious Brickyard 400 was. Be it NASCAR's desire to provide more content to IMS, TV's need to consolidate coverage or team's request for larger purses, the exodus from Raceway Park was a huge mistake.
While special, 400 miles around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is more than enough. The Xfinity Series race is redundant and actually takes away from the Sunday show. By providing an extra opportunity to kiss the bricks, NASCAR has established that anyone can feel like they've won the Brickyard 400, and it lessens the impact of actually winning the Big One at the end of the weekend.
Unfortunately, the Xfinity Series likely isn't leaving IMS anytime soon, but there is a reasonable compromise. If the race has to be run on the big track, run it on the road course used each May during the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Road courses have become the new short tracks in NASCAR and it's become widely popular among the fan base. Replacing the current existing event with this road course concept would at least provide a much-needed spark to the weekend.
This way, the stars and cars of NASCAR's B series can remain on hallowed ground and the fans could be treated to a vastly different (and more exciting) race than the one everyone is currently subjected to. And perhaps IMS can even leverage their Indy 500 stars to participate to help draw the locals.
Imagine Alex Tagliani picking up his first NASCAR national touring victory for Team Penske or Graham Rahal finally crossing Xfinity off his personal bucket list at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The possibilities are endless and it's a much better show than the status quo.
Just don't let the winners of that race kiss the bricks. That's the worst.

 

reserved

 

1920
LOUIS JEROME "RED" VOGT
Louis Jerome "Red" Vogt, the man who named the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, has long been recognized as NASCAR's first master mechanic. Red's racing career began in the 1920's and ended with his retirement in 1968.

Vogt was born in Washington, D.C. on September 22, 1904. At age 12 he got his first job with a local Cadillac dealership. In his early 20's he moved to Atlanta and opened the soon-to-be famous Red Vogt Garage on the corner of Spring Street and Linden Avenue. Red's recognition as a master mechanic began with his association with Raymond Parks.

Vogt Specials were well known on race tracks throughout the South and can be seen in every old racing film from the 40's and 50's. Although the cars bore several different numbers, the most famous were Nos. 14 and 22 owned by Parks. From 1946 to 1949 the team of Vogt and Parks won four consecutive beach races.

Vogt brought a group of Atlanta car owners and drivers to Daytona in December 1947 to meet with Bill France and discuss ways to protect the fledgling sport from unscrupulous promoters. Although he owned a Georgia charter for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Red suggested a joint effort. To ensure a beginning without controversy, Red gave up the Georgia charter and suggested that the new organization use the name NASCAR.

After the inaugural NASCAR race in February 1948, Red Byron said, "You can't win a horse race without a good horse, and you can't win a stock car race without a good car. What the trainer is to the horse, a mechanic is to the car, and I've got the best mech in the racing business. Red Vogt is the reason I win. He puts those motors together like a watch. When other mechanics learn his secret gear ratio, there won't be any stragglers in a race. They'll all travel."

Red operated a garage, maintained race cars for several owners, andbuilt racing engines for many other owners. His cars won untold races on tracks in many small towns on the circuit. Those fortunate drivers, who were the envy of all racers, included stock car drivers Johnny Allen, Red Byron, Bob Flock, Fonty Flock, Bill France, Roy Hall, Banjo Matthews, Glenn "Fireball" Roberts, Lloyd Seay, Jack Smith, Curtis Turner, and Jerry Wimbish and Indy car drivers Chet Gardner, Tony Gulatto, Floyd Roberts, and Tony Williams.

In the mid-50's Red closed the Atlanta garage, moved to Charlotte, and worked for the Ford team of Pete DePaolo. He later became crew chief for Carl Kiekhaefer and for Fish Carburetor.

Red receiving the 1st and possibly only lifetime membership presented by NASCAR and Bill France

Red was inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame (Darlington) in 1980 and the TRW/NASCAR Mechanics Hall of Fame (inaugural ceremony) in 1987. He passed away on March 7, 1991 at his home in Daytona Beach at the age of 86.


*****************************************
1932
ROBERT "RED" BYRON
Robert "Red" Byron holds a record that can never be broken: he was the first NASCAR points champion. Byron was born in Boulder, Colorado but moved to Anniston, Alabama at an early age. He began racing in 1932 in unorganized races at a little-known track at Talladega.

During World War II Byron served as a tail gunner on 57 missions in a B-24. He was shot down over Kikta in the Aleutian Islands on his 58th mission -- one he flew for a friend whose wife was expected to give birth to their first child at any moment. Although the doctors did not know if he would ever walk again, Red was determined to race.

After 27 months in military hospitals with doctors trying to rebuild his left leg, Red returned to racing in February 1946 at Seminole Speedway near Orlando, Florida in a car owned by LLOAR Director Raymond Parks. With his badly damaged leg in a steel stirrup bolted to the clutch, Byron posted a win over some impressive competition: Roy Hall, Mad Marion McDonald, Bob and Fonty Flock, Bill Snowden, and Bill France.

Byron's next start was the Daytona beach-road race in April. He chased Roy Hall for the first half of the 50-lap race. Around the 16th lap the tide started coming in, and Hall, knowing that the harder the sand the faster the car, ran with his right tires in the water. On lap 19 Hall's car veered toward the fans in the North Turn. He quickly turned to the right and went into the surf. Moments later he was back in the race, but Byron had passed him.

After a short career in AAA cars, Byron returned to stock cars in 1947 and won half of his 18 races. Although he competed in less than half of the races that year, he finished third in points.

Red won the first NASCAR-sanctioned race on the beach-road course on February 15, 1948. He won 11 races that year, finished in the top three 23 times, and captured the first NASCAR championship.

Red retired from racing in the early 1950's to head a sports car racing team. He died in 1960 and was inducted into the National Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1966. In 1998 he was named one of the top 50 NASCAR drivers.