Jack
Smith
moved to Georgia when he was two years old. He
worked at a service station in the 1940s near Roswell. He began racing
against local bootleggers on rough dirt tracks and asphalt
superspeedways, and across fields.
Jack
Smith's love of racing began in Georgia in
the 1940s when he worked at a service
station near Roswell. He began running
against local bootleggers across fields, on
rough dirt tracks and asphalt superspeedways.
I
looked at NASCAR's list of top 50 drivers of all time, but I did
not see the name of Jack Smith. The list was chock full of good
racers but very absent of one of the best. I called Jack at his
transmission shop in Spartanburg, S.C. and asked to stop by to
see him. I wanted to know exactly what I was missing that NASCAR
apparently was not.
The first race
.......The more things change ... well, you know
the rest.
By Al Pearce Daily
Press March 15,
2003
Exhibit
1: "Big Bill" France scheduled
NASCAR's first-ever Winston Cup race in the
backyard of the man challenging him for control
of American stock car racing after World War II.
The time and place: Sunday afternoon,
June 19, 1949, at the three-quarter mile dirt
Charlotte Speedway.
The rivals: France and Olin Bruton
Smith. The same Bruton Smith who currently
owns six NASCAR tracks. And he's still scrapping
with "Big Bill's" sons and grandchildren over
all matters great and small. Oh, the sweet irony
of it all.
France had founded NASCAR in Daytona Beach,
Fla., in December of 1948. He aimed to unify the
handful of sanctioning bodies that emerged when
Detroit began building new cars after the war.
He correctly figured that his target audience -
primarily Southern farmers and factory workers -
preferred street-legal, family sedans over
unrecognizable Indy-style "championship cars" or
"roadsters."
Farther north, Smith had the same idea. He had
founded the National Stock Car Racing
Association and was battling France and NASCAR
for drivers, cars, fans and publicity. France
saw Smith as a threat - sound familiar? - but
chose to go right at him instead of bobbing and
weaving.
Which is why France chose to introduce his
fledgling "Strictly Stock" class (later Grand
National, then Cup) in Smith's
hometown of Charlotte. The race would go for 200
laps. The purse was an unimaginable $5,000,
including $2,000 for the winner and $1,000 for
the runner-up.
Bob Flock won the pole on Saturday and
led the 33-car field to the flag the next day.
Nobody realized it at the time, but that moment
was the birth of stock car racing in this
country.
"To most everybody, it was just a bunch of
people having a race," said racing legend
Richard Petty. He was 9 at the time, much
too young to appreciate what was happening.
"There wasn't any schedule back then. The race
just showed up and everybody drove down there
for it. They wouldn't let me in the pits, so I
sold programs in the infield.
"Daddy (the late Lee Petty) borrowed a
friend's '48 Buick and drove it to a Texaco
station near the track. He and Uncle Julian
changed the oil, greased it, gassed it and went
racing. Daddy ran about halfway before the
right-rear blew and rolled it over. They used a
rollback to get it back to Greensboro the next
day. I don't know they explained the wrecked car
to the guy they'd borrowed it from. I'm sure
Daddy made it good, but I don't remember ever
hearing about it."
Flock led the first five laps in his Hudson,
Bill Blair led 6-150 in his Lincoln and
Glenn Dunnaway led the rest in a Ford.
Hours later, Chief Inspector Al Crisler
disqualified Dunnaway. Rules clearly prohibited
modifications, but owner Hubert Westmoreland
had shored up the chassis by spreading the rear
springs, a favorite trick of bootleggers looking
to improve traction and handling. Instead of
Dunnaway, the victory went to Lincoln driver
Jim Roper. The Kansas native had been scored
second, three laps behind. Fonty Flock, Red
Byron, Sam Rice and Tim Flock rounded
out the top five. Westmoreland was so incensed
by the DQ that he sued NASCAR. A North Carolina
judge threw it out, the first of many times
France and NASCAR have carried the day.
Only
a few drivers in that first race left a
recognizable footprint on NASCAR.
They included the Flock brothers,
Byron, Lee Petty, Curtis Turner, Buck Baker,
Jack Smith,
Jim Paschal and Herb Thomas. Sara
Christian started 13th and ran well until
tiring and yielding her Ford to Bob Flock.
By almost any measure, the race was a success.
One NASCAR official estimated the crowd at
22,500, but France, who was mindful that drivers
and the taxman were watching, quickly readjusted
it to 13,000. Whatever the actual count, France
was pleased enough to schedule races later that
summer at Daytona Beach, Fla., Hillsboro, N.C.,
Langhorne, Pa., Hamburg, N.Y., Martinsville,
Pittsburgh, Pa., and North Wilkesboro, N.C.
"The next race came up just like that first one
had," Richard Petty said. "It was, 'OK, this
worked out pretty good, so let's go race down in
Daytona Beach next month.' Back then, there
wasn't much planning. Things just seemed to
happen."
Field of dreams: We create our fantasy grid by selecting the greatest drivers in NASCAR history - National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing
43. Jack Smith: One of stock-car racing's first stars, Smith won 21 races in 15 years. A service station worker in Georgia, he began racing against local bootleggers across fields, on ragged dirt tracks, and on asphalt speedways. Smith, who died in 2001, won his first race at Martinsville in 1956. He was voted NASCAR's most popular driver in 1959. Smith is a member of the Daytona Beach Hall of Fame and the National Motorsports Press Hall of Fame in Darlington.
ALL-TIME STARTING GRID1. Dale Earnhardt 2. Richard Petty 3. David Pearson 4. Darrell Waltrip 5. Jeff Gordon 6. Cale Yarborough 7. Bobby Allison 8. Junior Johnson 9. Ned Jarrett 10. Lee Petty* 11. Fireball Roberts 12. Buck Baker* 13. Tim Flock* 14. Herb Thomas* 15. Joe Weatherly 16. Rusty Wallace 17. Harry Gant 18. Benny Parsons 19. Bill Elliott 20. Bobby Isaac 21. Dale Jarrett 22. Fred Lorenzen 23. Terry Labonte 24. Davey Allison 25. Tony Stewart 26. Ricky Rudd 27. Mark Martin 28. Curtis Turner* 29. Neil Bonnett 30. Buddy Baker 31. Rex White 32. Marvin Panch 33. LeeRoy Yarbrough 34. Alan Kulwicki 35. Fonty Flock* 36. Jim Paschal 37. Herschel McGriff 38. Tiny Lund 39. Geoffrey Bodine 40. Speedy Thompson 41. Red Byron* 42. Tim Richmond 43. Jack Smith* * All participated in the very first NASCAR race - TRUE Pioneers!
Autographed picture. What a Trophy!
