Robert "Red" Byron won the first NASCAR sanctioned race on a
beach-road course in February 15, 1948. He went on to win
eleven races that year and finished in the top three
twenty-three times, and he also won the very first NASCAR
Championship.
Red
Byron got his start in the early '30s in unorganized races
at a little known track at Talladega. When World War 2
broke out Byron served as a tail-gunner on a B-24 pulling
off 57 missions before his plane was shot down over the
Aleutian Islands on run number 58. Red spent 27 months in
military hospitals while doctors tried to rebuild his left
leg. The doctors didn't think that Red would ever walk
again but in February 1946 Red returned to racing again at
Seminole Speedway near Orlando, FL. He drove a car owned
by Raymond Parks and because of
his injured left leg, he had to have it put in a steel
stirrup, which was bolted to the clutch. Byron won that
race beating out such drivers as Bob and Fonty Flock, Mad
Marion McDonald, Roy Hall, and Bill France. He also
won his next race at Daytona beach-road
course,
beating out Roy Hall again.
After a short career in AAA cars, Byron returned to stock cars in 1947 and won half of the 18 races he entered. He finished third in points and only competed in less than half the races that year.
Red retired from racing in the early '50s to head a sports car racing team. He was inducted into the National Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1966 and in 1998 he was named one of the top-50 NASCAR drivers.
