Big-time stock car racing in Richmond; A deep look at how it all got started

(AUTHOR’S NOTE:
We still have more than a month before the NASCAR Cup Series returns to Richmond Raceway, but here’s a little something to get you thinking about the history of that event, how NASCAR settled in at Strawberry Hill, Virginia.)

There are two dates that most fans of Richmond, Virginia, stock car racing history know: May 16, 1948, when Red Byron won the first NASCAR-sanctioned race ever run in Richmond, and April 19, 1953, when Lee Petty won the first Grand National/Cup race there. Those are valid dates to remember.

Some will throw in a September 2, 1946, race won by Buddy Shuman, but while it was the first stock car race run in town after WWII, it needs two caveats: (1) even though it was promoted by Bill France for Richmond’s American Legion Post, it was pre-NASCAR, and (2) it was run on the OLD fairgrounds track, where the new CarMax Park and old Diamond baseball parks are located. Historic, but. . .

What I want to do here is concentrate on the 1953 date, which IS the first Grand National/Cup race, but ISN’T the city’s first effort to host a major traveling stock car tour. Here’s the rest of that story.

We won’t include modified races here, because the touring circuits being considered were of the same “strictly stock” variety as France was promoting with his Grand National tour. Lots of drivers from up and down the East Coast and the Midwest raced in Richmond, but the races weren’t really part of a tour.

That brings us to September 12, 1951, for our first true tour event, and it moves us across the James River from what was then known as the Atlantic Rural Exposition (Virginia State Fairgrounds) track to Royall (now Southside) Speedway, where Jim Reed, the New York truck dealer, won a 400-lap event in NASCAR’s Short Track Series.

The Short Track Series was nothing more than GN/Cup cars running on tracks shorter than half a mile. Promotional materials generally just said “Grand National” or “Late Model” and dispensed with the “Short Track” part. Was it Richmond’s first GN event? Not technically, but you can decide.

On June 27, 1952, the Short Track Division stars returned, but this time for only 200 laps. Didn’t matter; Reed still won.

Then, just over five weeks later, the first true touring series race took place at the fairgrounds. It was the first – and last – Richmond appearance for the AAA Late Models, billed as “Big-time racing comes to Richmond,” due to the number of Indy drivers entered. Jack McGrath won. There was no “second annual.”

That race was promoted by the same team running Royall Speedway, owner Nelson Royall and right-hand-man Bill Rose. The next year they would return to promote that first Grand National/Cup event at the fairgrounds.

They also would bring the Short Track Division back to Royall Speedway four months after their GN debut race at ARE in ‘53. This event was quite unusual: TWIN 200-lappers, both won by Bob Welborn, who later would become known as kind of the Convertible Division, about which you’ll hear more shortly.

As you may know, the initial GN/Cup event was pretty much a fiasco, due to terrible weather, and there wasn’t a repeat performance in 1954.

Instead, there was the Circuit of Champions, a Midwest-based group that was said to limit competitors to track champions or those earning similarly impressive titles, and the cars had to be new. “Farmer Jack” Harrison of Indianapolis won the race, with Bob Welborn finishing third. The crowd was estimated at 3,500, which doesn’t sound great and may explain the sanctioning body’s next appearance.

In 1955, the NASCAR GN/Cup circuit returned to run on May 22 (Tim Flock won), and the Circuit of Champions returned two weeks later (Darel Dieringer won), but there were some important differences. First, the promoter for both events was Joe Weatherly, who began the year promoting both the ARE fairgrounds and Royall Speedway on a sort-of rotating basis, with the NASCAR race at the fairgrounds and the “Champions” race at Royall.

Second, the Circuit of Champions was now for convertibles.

Unfortunately, there were just 15 of them on hand, with Dieringer, known for later NASCAR exploits, taking the win. The 3,800 crowd figure doesn’t sound overwhelming, either. That might explain why, within a year, the Circuit of Champions had “merged” (been acquired by) NASCAR, which used it as the foundation for its own Convertible Division, which would return to town in two years.

Sadly, this also was the last race for Royall Speedway, until it was resurrected by J.M. Wilkinson in 1959, and it was the last major non-NASCAR touring stock car circuit to visit town. The 1955 GN/Cup event began an annual series that continues today, 71 years later.

Oh, and the Weatherly promotional era included his new right-hand-man, a guy named Paul Sawyer, who would be solely in command by the end of 1955 and would hang around for quite a while thereafter, to Richmond’s eternal benefit.

Just for the record, though, here’s a look at the rest of the evolutionary line:

1956 – One GN race at ARE, won by Buck Baker.

1957 – One GN race and one Convertible race.

1958 – One GN race and one Convertible race.

1959 – Two GN races (each 200 laps) and one Convertible race.

1960 – Two GN races (each 200 laps). Convertible Division has folded.

1961 – Two GN races (one 250 laps, the other 200), plus Southside Speedway ran a GN race and an Eastern Late Model Race (a series that briefly replaced the now-folded Short Track Division).

1962 – Richmonders struck it rich with FOUR GN races, two at the ARE fairgrounds (one 250 laps but shortened by darkness and one 300 laps) and two at Southside (200 laps and 300 laps).

(Ironically, even with four events, this year doesn’t mark the high point for number of LAPS run by GN cars at Richmond; from 1970-75, the old half-mile paved speedway ran two 500-lappers each year, for a total of 1,000 laps versus 980 for 1962 – with one race not run to its full distance. My guess is that 980 laps on that dirt track was tougher than 1,000 on pavement, though.)

1963 – ARE fairgrounds ran two GN races, 250 and 300 laps, and Southside ran its final GN event, a 300-lapper. Ned Jarrett won both the Southside race and the 300-lapper at the fairgrounds.

Since then, it was two GN/Cup events per year at what would soon become Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway, then Richmond International Raceway, then Richmond Raceway, until the current, sad, one-race-a-year routine was imposed.

That’s how we got here.

(About the cover photo: This isn’t the 1947 Ford that Jim Reed was driving when he won the NASCAR “Grand National” Short Track Division race at Richmond’s Royall Speedway on September 12, 1951, but it’s a shot of the great New York driver taking the checkered flag, according to the Hudson Valley Historical Racing Committee, which published the photo when Reed died seven years ago.)

Frank’s Loose Lug Nuts

For history nerds, sometimes you just can’t help yourself. I HAD to learn more about the Circuit of Champions. Whether you feel that need or not, here goes (courtesy of Speed Sport). The series was founded in 1952 by Chicago native Chuck Scharf, who had earlier run races on a local track with cars from his used car lot. The official sanction body name was the Society of Autosport, Fellowship, and Education, or SAFE.

In 1952, Scharf kicked things up a notch, requiring drivers to be feature winners or current record holders in cars no more than four years old. By 1953, the circuit had 30 events all over the Midwest. Pat “The Flying Cowboy” Kirkwood won the first two championships.

In 1954, the number of events was more than 40, and “Farmer Jack” Harrison was the champ. Then came the switch to convertibles in 1955, when Don Oldenberg took the title. Once again, about 30 races made up the schedule, but now more of them were in the Southeast, so maybe Scharf and his now-partner Harry Redkey were having problems getting repeat business.

Whether that was the case or not, the series “merged” with NASCAR in December 1955 (Redkey was said to be moving over with the deal), and the NASCAR Convertible Division made its debut the next season, lasting a little while longer than the SAFE Circuit of Champions.

Finally, a little history in photos. Pennsylvania’s Eastern Museum of Motor Racing held its Latimore Valley Fair last weekend, and it was again my privilege to announce the track time for antique and vintage race cars. The car count was down a bit, but I think these might be of interest

Frank Buhrman