Going National While Staying Southern: Stock Car Racing in America, 1949-1979
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GOING NATIONAL WHILE STAYING SOUTHERN: STOCK CAR RACING IN AMERICA, 1949-1979 A Dissertation Presented to The Academic Faculty By Ben A. Shackleford In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the History and Sociology of Science and Technology Georgia Institute of Technology December, 2004 GOING NATIONAL WHILE STAYING SOUTHERN: STOCK CAR RACING IN AMERICA, 1949-1979 Approved By Dr. Steven Usselman Dr. Gus Giebelhause Dr. Doug Flamming Dr. Philip Scranton Dr. William Winders Date Approved 22 July 2004 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A work of this scope inevitably draws upon resources outside the individual author. Luckily I have been able to draw upon many interested and willing librarians and archivists while conducting research for this project. I would like to thank Rebecca Lynch, Roger White, Maggie Dennis, Joyce Bedi, at the Smithsonian Institution. Buz McKim at the ISC archives, Betty Carlan at the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, the Staff of the National Automotive History Collection at the Detroit Public Library, and Bonnie Walworth at the Ford Motor Company archives in Dearborn, Michigan. I would also like to thank the Lemelson Center, the Atlanta History Center, the Riddle Foundation and the School of History, Technology and Society at Georgia Tech whose generosity permitted me to work in such a variety of collections. Studying the history of technology often requires technical expertise beyond that available in the classroom. During my experience as a racing mechanic and fabricator I was fortunate to have many very capable teachers who willingly shared their expertise. Among these are my Robert Wagner, Smokey Yunick, Chris Brown, Amos Johnson, Thomas Blam and Franz Blam. Any technical proficiency demonstrated in these pages results solely from contact with these fine teachers, any errors or omissions are my own. Beyond the practicalities of research materials and technical experience, this project required the assistance and encouragement of many gifted scholars. I owe Steve Usselman, Phil Scranton, Gus Giebelhaus, Doug Flamming, Steve Vallas, Pete Daniel, Bob Post and Dave Morton a tremendous debt for their intellectual guidance and support. Finally, I would like to thank my partner Robin, and my family for their continued support of my academic career. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Automotive Speed Culture in the 1950s 22 Chapter 3: Establishment and Southern Retrenchment 63 Chapter 4: The “Spirit of Competition” Meets Racing Innovation 119 Chapter 5: The Racing Fraternity 173 Chapter 6: Superspeedways and National Emergence 211 Chapter 7: Conclusion 257 iv LIST OF TABLES 1. Total Reported Annual Attendance of NASCAR Events, 1949 –1979 102 2. Location of NASCAR Events by State and Region, 1949 – 1954 103 3. Location of NASCAR Events by State and Region, 1955 – 1959 104 4. Number of NASCAR Events 1949 - 1979, by State 109 5. The Transition to Paved Racetracks, 1949 – 1979 222 6. Fastest Qualifying Speeds of “500” Events, 1949 – 1979 226 7. Reported Average Attendance Per Event by Year, 1949 – 1979 236 8. Racing Miles Per Year, 1949 – 1979 237 9. Yearly Average Pole Speeds, 1949 – 1979 272 v LIST OF FIGURES 1. Bill France on Daytona Beach with “Miss NASCAR” circa 1953 89 2. Map Showing Concentration of NASCAR events in the Southern Piedmont, 1955 through 1969 116 3. Roll Cage from the 1960 NASCAR Rule Book 136 4. Roll Cage from the 1963 NASCAR Rule Book 139 5. Roll Cage from the 1967 NASCAR Rule Book 140 6. Integral Roll Cage and Chassis from the 1973 NASCAR Rule Book 142 7. “Truck Arm” rear suspension on NASCAR Winston Cup racecar as seen from below. 147 8. Schematic of “Truck Arm” suspension 149 9. Three iterations of a Chevrolet ‘Chevelle’ Front Lower “A Arm” 151 10. Unmodified stamped steel “A Arm” 152 11. Reinforced “A Arm,” with added shock absorber mounts 153 12. Reinforced and “Dropped” Chevelle “A Arm” 154 13. Ford Torino “Talladega” limited production aerodynamic ‘stocker.’ 246 14. The Dodge Charger “Daytona”, built for competition on the “superspeedways” was also known as the “superbird.” 247 15. Torino Talladega headlight rims 249 16. Aerial Photo of the Alabama International Motor Speedway at Talladega 251 vi SUMMARY During the second half of the 20th century the Stock Car Racing enjoyed substantial growth and development. For the National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing (NASCAR) control over the technology of competition and the conduct of race events was crucial to building respectability and profitability as an entertainment phenomenon between 1949 and 1979. The power to specify technology offered NASCAR leverage over the actions of racers who, despite their status as independent contractors, were fiercely loyal competitors. Control over the technology of competition also helped maintain ‘strictly stock’ perceptions of NASCAR racing that made corporate sponsorship attractive to automakers and held the interest of the general public. After initial forays across the nation, NASCAR chose advantageous concentration on the southeastern markets where racing spectacle found the most enthusiastic and devoted audience. This thesis is an account of the process of systematization that brought the grass-roots phenomenon of production-based to a region and an nation, and how NASCAR relied on a stock-appearing racecar as a device to simultaneously control participants, lure corporate promotional dollars, and attract fans. vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The American automobile was born of the minds and methods of pragmatic men. Lacking a body of scientific theory or access to precision measurement devices, motoring pioneers often turned to endurance runs and speed contests to test their machinery. Such empiricism ultimately refined the car through the initial period of novelty status into a device of some reliability and utility. As a consequence, early automobile racing was as much about finding the practical limits of automobile use as about posting impressive speeds. In the first race staged in the United States, in 1895, only two cars finished out of a field of 83 entrants.1 In the face of such dramatic technical challenges, how long and how fast cars could be made to operate became objectives with tremendous cultural gravity. Early cars were as much a novelty as a practical technology, a plaything for wealthy patron or curious mechanics, enthusiast tinkers engaged in empirically refining the car. As the designs and business practices of the American automotive industry became more refined, racing in either top speed events or contests staged on horse tracks gained popularity as a means not only of testing, but also of promoting the virtues of a specific model. These contests soon attracted attention on the basis of their entertainment value as much as test runs, product demonstrations, or promotional opportunities. After all, how often could the public see inventors working in the laboratory? Though by the close of the 1920s the demands of the track and the exigencies of production had all but completely severed similarities between racecar and production car, the idea that racing could prove something about production cars would persist throughout the 20th century. Production-based racing, as it emerged after the 1 James J. Flink, The Automobile Age, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), p.23 1 Second World War, would depend heavily upon the idea of automobile racing as a laboratory for automakers to suggest practical benefits of racing that might feed directly into consumer products. This suggestion typically was paired with assertions about the entertainment value of racing and was most frequently made in media accessible to the general public.2 Racing vehicles from the “stock” of an automobile manufacturer were, from the very first days of the car in America, part of the automotive landscape. Auto racing was a means of attracting publicity to motoring, advertising the durability of a model or manufacturer, or simply enjoying a technical challenge accompanying the dawn of the motor age. Promoters continually staged races in a variety of formats throughout the first decades of the 20th century.3 Sportsmen, manufacturers and promoters displayed automobiles for recreation, promotion or profit and they attracted audiences because of popular fascination with the sophisticated equipment and because of the entertaining aspects of racing competition. Speed record runs, hill climbs, cross-country endurance runs, 24hour races, European-style road racing, races on half-mile dirt “bullrings,” and races on massive, high-banked oval wooden tracks celebrated the power of automobiles. Claims that building a better racecar might help develop technical knowledge applicable to building regular cars for the public often acccompanied auto racing during these early decades. This claim, and the publicity accompanying motor sport in an era of explosive popularity for the car, helped automakers justify participation and better advertise success in racing. 2 There was not much discussion of these so-called practical applications of racing in publications like the National Speed Sport News or the NASCAR News that catered primarily to racers. 3 Russ Catlin, “History of the AAA”, Speed Age, July 1954, p.39, Levine 2 Journalists described competition with production cars as “stock car racing” as early as 1909.4 Promoters suggested that his sort of racing offered a public demonstration of the relative merits of vehicles of differing makes.5 The introduction of standardization and huge quantities of such cars through the techniques of mass production changed the definition of a “stock car.” In a time when automakers produced cars on a one-off basis and racecar design was in its infancy, ambitious car builders often blurred the distinction between a stock vehicle and a race vehicle. After the introduction of mass-production, the term came to mean vehicles produced on assembly lines using mass-production techniques. Though perhaps subtle, this distinction suggested that the availability provided by mass production made “stock” racecar performance available to the public when often it did not.