20 replies to this topic

[MPea3]

The death of Skimp Hersey was covered in this thread, but in looking at something totally unrelated, I ran across this article in which the claim is made that he was NASCAR's 1st fatality. Is this true?

[Paul Taylor]

I'm don't think that the race Hersey died in was strictly a NASCAR (then called Grand National) sanctioned event?

Someone will probably correct me if I'm wrong, though.

[Muzza]

Calling Jim Thurman!

I strongly believe that the race in which John Edward "Skimp" Hersey died was not a Grand National event. It was a stock car race, but it I think it was not sanctioned by NASCAR predecessors, but by another association. Jim may be able to confirm that.

The problem is that many people today associate NASCAR (and predecessors) to just about any stock car race in the United States - and this is quite incorrect.


Muzza

[MPea3]

This is part of what's not clear. In the news article I linked to the writer seems to say it WAS a NASCAR sanctioned event, so I went to the NASCAR site into their history section, and checked on the year 1950. Unfortunbately, they only list events concerning the last few races of that year and the chase for the championship. It was intersting to note a NASCAR race at Winchester and another one in NY state though... hardly just a Southern sport at that time it seems.

[ensign14]

There was a NASCAR-sanctioned Late Model championship separate to the Strictly Stock title back in about 1948 or 1949...maybe this is the answer? I'm pretty sure that Greg Fielden mentions it in one of his books, probably "Real Racers", I'll check it out when I have a mo.

[Muzza]

Hello, MPea3,

I just checked the well-prepared website http://www.racing-reference.com, a good source on NASCAR results [*] and the race in which Hersey died is not listed. Check the page http://www.racing-re...r?id=hersesk01: it seems that the only NASCAR-sanctioned race Hersey started was in Charlotte, in 1949.

Another strange thing in the article at Savannah Now written by Don Coble you quoted (http://www.savannahn...blecolumn.shtml) is that the author says that Hersey died "fifty years and 11 months" before the date of publication. As the article was issued on 20 May 2000, and Hersey died on 12 June 1950, the correct would be forty-nine years and eleven months.


Muzza

[*] The only thing I don't like about the website Racing-Reference is that its name means that racing is NASCAR, and vice-versa...

[Muzza]

Originally posted by ensign14
There was a NASCAR-sanctioned Late Model championship separate to the Strictly Stock title back in about 1948 or 1949...maybe this is the answer? I'm pretty sure that Greg Fielden mentions it in one of his books, probably "Real Racers", I'll check it out when I have a mo.

Hummm... good point.

[MPea3]

Originally posted by Muzza
Hello, MPea3,


Another strange thing in the article at Savannah Now written by Don Coble you quoted (http://www.savannahn...blecolumn.shtml) is that the author says that Hersey died "fifty years and 11 months" before the date of publication. As the article was issued on 20 May 2000, and Hersey died on 12 June 1950, the correct would be forty-nine years and eleven months.


Muzza

[*] The only thing I don't like about the website Racing-Reference is that its name means that racing is NASCAR, and vice-versa...

He also states that it was Hersey's first NASCAR race. From the information you reference, that would seem to be false.

As a side note, I spent a hour or so at Lakewood on Sunday evening, and got a number of photographs of what's left. I should have them scanned and up here within a day or so. Standing up in the grandstands and looking toward turn 1 brought back many memories.

[Don Capps]

You need to realize that NASCAR has always run a variety of divisions or series from the first moments that it existed. In 1948, the main series was the Modified Division with the Sportsman and Late Model Divsions also drawing late numbers of entries. The Strictly Stock -- later Grand National -- Division was a relative late-comer to the family. To some of us "NASCAR" does not automatically connote the Grand National or Cup series. These other classes were the backbone of NASCAR and kept the France family solvent until the GN series finally caught on financially.

If Skimp Hersey died in 1950, I now wonder how NASCAR as NASCAR got that far without a fatality? How it got through all of 1948 and 1949 as well as most of 1950 without a fatality in a NASCAR-sanctioned event is little beyond a miracle if true. Not a criticism as much as a reflection of reality. It was pretty hard on drivers and spectators alike in those days.

Someone might want to nose around a tad more on this.

[Muzza]

Originally posted by Don Capps
You need to realize that NASCAR has always run a variety of divisions or series from the first moments that it existed. (...)

Absolutely, Don. This is a issue that has been simmering in my mind for years.

One of our "side-projects" at Motorsport Memorial is the preparation of a diagram (a sort of "genealogic tree") of the NASCAR-sanctioned series, with summarized descriptions of them. These many NASCAR series, titles and name changes along the years have driven me nuts. After looking for such a "diagram" for a long while - and not finding one - I am about to conclude that we have to create our own.

Any help on this concern is much, much appreciated. As to any Motorsport Memorial activity, any help with recognized in our acknowledgements. Also, the contributors will be listed as co-authors of the document.

Similarly, Hugo Boecker and I (and hopefully more people will join us) are preparing a "genealogic tree" of the many German sportscar and touring car series. If someone wants to receive a copy of this document on its current stage (that means, not yet completed!), please send me a private message. Any comments, suggestions and contributions are welcome.

Regards,


Muzza

[MPea3]

Originally posted by Don Capps


If Skimp Hersey died in 1950, I now wonder how NASCAR as NASCAR got that far without a fatality? How it got through all of 1948 and 1949 as well as most of 1950 without a fatality in a NASCAR-sanctioned event is little beyond a miracle if true. Not a criticism as much as a reflection of reality. It was pretty hard on drivers and spectators alike in those days.

I was wondering this too. In a quote from Hinnershitz in the earlier Hersey thread, he mentions that it was the 3rd fatality in a row at Lakewood, resulting in the city council considering stopping the racing at Lakewood. Of course I don;t know who sanctioned events at Lakewood, but even puttting Lakewood to the side, it's hard to think that 2 years could have gone by without someone dying at SOME race sanctioned by NASCAR.

[hinnershitz]

Hersey was killed in a race of the "Modified Division", which was sanctioned by NASCAR. It was mentioned on a website called iRace, built to commemorate NASCARs 50th anniversary in 1998 and now defunct. He was not a newcomer, he had been running before the war and competed in the 1947 NCSCC championship.

I'm sharing the confusion about 2 1/2 years of the whole of NASCAR running without a single fatality...but I can't find anything to contradict that. My records are just fragments, anyway.

Does somebody out there have some information about the 1948 season? I'm wondering how difficult it is to find anything, even dates for the championship races...

[ensign14]

The 1948 season is covered in "Real Racers" by Greg Fielden, but not in as much detail as his 'bible' of NASCAR.

First Championship race: Daytona, 15 Feb, won by Red Byron in a 1939 Ford.

First fatality noted: Swayne Pritchett, of Baldwin GA, who was 6th in points before the 16 May Richmond race - but Pritchett missed it to take part in an outlaw event at Jefferson GA in his Ford. He won the race with a stuck open throttle and he was killed in the first turn.

First NASCAR fatality: W R "Slick" Davis, killed in a crash at Greensboro on 25 July. On the same day at Columbos GA Red Byron had a tyre blow, he veered into the crowd, and a 7 year old boy was killed.

Inaugural champ was Red Byron, with 11 wins, followed by Fonty Flock (15 wins) and brother Tim (1 win). There were 52 races in all, some double headers.

Other race winners included Curtis Turner (7), Bob Flock (5), Gober Sosebee (3), Buddy Shuman and Billy Carden (2 each) and Bill Blair, Marshall Teague, Al Keller, Johnny Rogers, Paul Pappy (Jax on 30 May - a 19 year old Fireball Roberts ran 2nd) - and Skimp Hersey (Jax on 18 April, whilst Fonty was winning at Greensboro).

[GregY]

Does somebody out there have some information about the 1948 season? I'm wondering how difficult it is to find anything, even dates for the championship races... [/B]

The book NASCAR Chronicles by Greg Fielden has a decent summary of the 1948 season. According to it, the first race run under "NASCAR" was on February 15 at the Daytona Beach road course. The appendix lists all the races and winners and some other info.

For 1948 it also says "July 25: Slick Davis becomes the first NASCAR driver to be fatally injured. The tragedy happens in an event at Greensboro, NC. Curtis Turner starts on the pole and wins the race. Billy Carden wins another NASCAR Modified race held on the same day in Columbus, GA."

I hope this is useful.

Greg

EDIT: I didn't mean to duplicate ensign14's info, we were posting at the same time!

[hinnershitz]

It is useful. I'll have to get that book. Thank you both.

[HistoricMustang]

Article by Rick Minter which appeared in the Atlanta Journal 03/23/2003.

A little off topic but does touch on the above mentioned Lakewood Speedway and the Augusta tracks as well as others here in Georgia. I do not agree with his statement that the Augusta 3 mile circuit is doomed.

Mr. Minter has plans to cover the memorial dedication here in Augusta in five weeks.

Henry

Lost tracks of time : Some of Georgia's storied racetracks are fading into memory and disrepair
Rick Minter - Staff
Sunday, March 23, 2003


As NASCAR's Winston Cup Series celebrates its 2,000th race with 160,000 in the stands this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, some of Georgia's storied speedways --- tracks that contributed to that total --- lie wasting away, all but forgotten.

Between management problems and competition from newer facilities elsewhere in the South, tracks that once had so much potential are forever silenced. The roar of race cars, the cheers of the fans, and the distinct aroma that comes from mixing the smells of hot dogs, popcorn and beer with the fumes from gas and spinning tires are just distant memories.

Lakewood Speedway, a one-mile oval on the south side of Atlanta, once was was known as the "Grand Old Lady of Racing" and the "Indianapolis of the South." But a race hasn't been run there since 1979, and the venue continues to fall into disrepair.

Parts of the facility have been eradicated to make room for an amphitheater and parking lot. Kudzu crawls over grandstands once packed with thousands of race fans.

Jimmy Mosteller, who announced races at Lakewood and nearly every other track in Georgia since 1948, is pained by the sight of Lakewood today.

"It's heartbreaking," he said. "It disturbs me greatly to see the rich racing history of the past slowly deteriorating away."

The story's the same across the state:

> Augusta International Speedway, a complex that had both a three-mile road course and half-mile asphalt oval, is slowly being cannibalized for recreation ball fields and a library.

> Savannah Speedway, a regular Winston Cup stop until 1970, is rotting behind a drag strip.

> Middle Georgia Raceway, once considered one of the premier half-mile tracks in all of racing, now sits as a silent backdrop for a driving range in Byron.

> Valdosta's I-75 Speedway, where Cale Yarborough got his first victory in NASCAR's elite division, was abandoned more than 25 years ago.

> Macon Speedway, which played host to Georgia's first Cup race on Sept. 8, 1951, hasn't seen racing in nearly a half-century. The outline of the half-mile oval is barely recognizable in Macon's Central City Park.

Some of the old Cup tracks have held on. Peach State Speedway (Jeffco Speedway in its early days) in Jefferson, Stateline Speedway (formerly Boyd's) near Chattanooga, Augusta's Gordon Park Speedway and Savannah's Oglethorpe Speedway all are still operational. But their events are limited to weekend local racing series that draw a few thousand at best.

Tommy Porter is a retired NASCAR touring series driver who also was a regular at Savannah Speedway.

"Savannah was a really nice speedway," Porter said. "But now there's just a skeleton of a grandstand, and the track's all grown up.

"It kind of turns your stomach to see it."

Lakewood once a hot spot

Longtime racing enthusiasts say the same thing about Lakewood. It was one of the nation's premier venues before NASCAR's superspeedway boom in the late 1950s and early '60s led to giant paved tracks in Atlanta, Charlotte and Daytona Beach, Fla.

As part of that trend, NASCAR began abandoning smaller venues in favor of larger sites. It eventually led to a major schedule revision in 1972 that cut the number of Winston Cup races from 60 or so to 31. That realignment, hauntingly similar to the one being considered by NASCAR today to give larger tracks more dates at the expense of smaller ones, eliminated all Georgia tracks except Atlanta Motor Speedway, then known as Atlanta International Raceway.

Lakewood surrendered its Cup date to AMS when the new track opened in 1960. It was a move mourned by racing historians.

The track's flat, one-mile dirt oval, most of which is still visible, is almost as old as the automobile. It opened in 1917 for harness racing as well as motorcycle and open-wheeled car events. In its heyday of the 1930s and '40s, crowds of more than 30,000 filled the grandstands and sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the grassy banks that lined the track. The same cars that raced at Indianapolis Motor Speedway ran there, as did stock cars.

The stock-car class had evolved from the impromptu contests held in open fields among whiskey-trippers bent on proving who had the fastest hot rod. In the 1940s, Bill France Sr. corralled the rowdy bunch, founding NASCAR and writing a set of rules to create the series that has become Winston Cup.

In the early years, Lakewood was one of the major stops on France's circuit. A competing series run by several promoters including Bruton Smith, whose company now owns six Cup tracks including AMS, also raced there.

Eleven Cup races, then known as either Grand National or Strictly Stock, were held at Lakewood. The fastest cars --- as well as the most talented drivers --- belonged to a whiskey dealer from Atlanta named Raymond Parks. He was the Rick Hendrick of his era, a multi-car team owner who took the circuit by storm with drivers such as Red Byron and Roy Hall.

"We didn't lose very often," said Parks, now 88.

In the late 1930s, Lloyd Seay was one of Parks' drivers. Still in his teens, he won races all over the country --- the Jeff Gordon or Kurt Busch of his day.

On Sept. 1, 1941, he drove a Parks car to victory at Lakewood. A day later, Seay was shot dead in a dispute over the price of a load of sugar destined for a moonshine still.

Although Byron won the first Winston Cup championship in 1949, Parks dropped out of the sport a year later.

"I loved racing and I loved winning, but it was costing too much money," Parks said. "I had to start making a living."

With Parks out of the picture and city leaders unwilling to spend money to improve Lakewood, Georgia's participation in NASCAR dwindled.

Even after Lakewood lost its Winston Cup race date in 1960, there were considerable efforts to save the old track. William B. Hartsfield, the former Atlanta mayor who also served as a director of the fairgrounds, in 1967 had the clay on the track replaced and built a new press box and VIP lounge. He even promised to have the track paved and bring back NASCAR racing. The campaign continued even after her last two races in 1979, but the needed improvement funds never materialized.

Dangerous reputation

Part of the problem was the track's reputation as one of racing's most dangerous. Racing historian Mike Bell of Decatur said Lakewood's lethal history proved a public-relations nightmare.

"There were at least a dozen drivers, maybe a dozen and a half, who were killed at Lakewood," Bell said. "Probably the most gruesome photos that ever appeared on the front pages of the Atlanta papers were of Skimp Hersey's death at Lakewood."

Hersey was one of the first NASCAR drivers to be killed in a race. At Lakewood on June 11, 1950, Hersey's car crashed, flipped and caught fire. Hersey, doused with spilling fuel, became engulfed in flames. The frame-by-frame photos show the disoriented driver climbing from his car, sitting down on the track and burning as 15,000 looked on in horror. He was rushed to Grady hospital, where he died the next day.

The poor quality of the track was one of the biggest hazards, with clouds of dust often blinding drivers.

"For years, the clay was just worn out --- too sandy --- and no one would spend the money to replace it," Bell said.

Such conditions played a role in another infamous accident. George Robson, who won the 1946 Indy 500 in May, was killed only a few months later at Lakewood.

Unable to see the slow-moving car of Billy DeVore because of the dusty conditions, Robson slammed into DeVore's stricken vehicle and was in turn hit by several other cars. Indy veteran George Barringer also died in the pileup. The efforts of race winner Ted Horn, who stopped and tried to flag down oncoming drivers, failed because of the dust.

"The ironic thing is that the frontstretch is now paved," said Bell of the alteration that was made to create an access drive to Lakewood Amphitheater.

Tracks made history

Like Lakewood, Augusta International Speedway also suffered from the lack of an organized push to maintain it. It had a state-of-the-art, three-mile road course, but it only held one Cup race, in November 1963. That 417-mile race is significant in NASCAR history because it was the last ever won by Fireball Roberts.

In one of racing's most tragic twists, the four top finishers at that Augusta race died in racing crashes within the next year. In May, Roberts, one of NASCAR's all-time greats and a director of the Augusta track, was badly burned in a wreck at Charlotte and died a few weeks later. Runner-up Dave MacDonald was killed at the 1964 Indianapolis 500. Third-place finisher Billy Wade died at Daytona; and Joe Weatherly, the reigning Cup champion, was killed at Riverside.

But Georgia's forgotten tracks also played positive roles in the careers of racing legends.

LeeRoy Yarbrough got his first victory on the half-mile at Augusta. Wendell Scott, the only African-American to compete regularly in Winston Cup, won his only pole at Savannah in 1962, more than a year before his historic victory at Jacksonville.

From outward appearances, Middle Georgia Speedway in Byron, which held nine Cup races in the late 1960s and early 1970s, could reopen any day.

Idle since 1984, the racing surface is intact and in fairly good condition. But the main grandstands have been condemned, and a 1998 effort to reopen the track was thwarted by rezoning problems.

Mosteller says he will never forget a race he was working at the Byron venue.

"I was in the booth calling the race, and this man I didn't know came up to me and told me to announce that this would be the last race at the track until further notice," said Mosteller, 76. "I didn't know who he was, so I stalled off making the announcement until I could find out what was going on.

"But when he came back and showed me his badge, I knew he meant business."

The authorities later showed Mosteller a false floor in a ticket booth that led to a huge underground liquor still that had been built under the third and fourth turns of the track.

The still's discovery began the track's demise. A huge rock concert a few years later in 1970 sealed its fate.

"Those hippies cleaned out everybody's garden and ate the fruit off their trees and created so much ill will in the community that the track couldn't overcome it," said Mosteller, who lives in Atlanta.

He occasionally drives by the old track and thinks of what might have been.

"It breaks my heart," Mosteller said. "It's one of the finest half-mile asphalt tracks in the country. It could have been another Bristol."

[ensign14]

BTW, does anyone know if Greg Fielden is netted up? It'd be great if he could be persuaded to pop in over here...his research is astounding and he has a folksy writing style reminiscent of Shelby Foote crossed with Reuters.

[Don Capps]

I think I still have his Myrtle Beach address and phone number here somewhere. He is the Genuine Article, cut from the same bolt of cloth as about everyone here.

I have always been impressed how he just went out and did it.

I will spare you the gory, unpleasant details of my efforts in a parallel endeavor, but that he managed to get so much from the 50s is the because that was my nightmare. Like Fielden, I had several of the regional racing papers which really helped with getting all the 60s and 70s sorted out. But the 50s....

A stupendous effort on his part.

I wish I could sit down and work with that material.....

Along with a few like Phil Harms, Greg has one of the more impressve private collections of American racing information around.

As for his being wired, good question.

[hinnershitz]

Something nice on Ebay...the seller doesn't ship internationally, so it is out of my reach, but the scans alone make me a happy man...

High Point, June 29, 1941

Martinsville, April 24, 1949

I can confirm the year of the High Point program as 1941...I have seen it before. And note that Skimp Hersey is listed in the entry lists of both races.

[Jim Thurman]

The basic problem with the article is that the writer, while clearly doing some research, did not do any follow-up research. It is very clear that he at least looked through Fielden & Golenbock's "Stock Car Racing Encyclopedia" and noted the off-track deaths listed. Then again, perhaps I'm giving him too much credit as I recall seeing another column on-line where the writer listed the same off-track fatalities. At least for that column, the writer noted he checked the Fielden & Golenbock book to glean the information and gave credit.

The big error with the column is to assume that the starts in "NASCAR" were the full extent of the driver's experience, or in the case of Hersey - the race he died in (which is incorrect).

As examples, Gene Thonesen, who indeed died in a tractor accident on the family farm near Reedley, California, made many starts in the NASCAR Western series and Bob Pronger was a real veteran who raced for more than 20 years, primarily in the Midwest and usually not with NASCAR.

It is nice that he noted "most died away from the race track". I guess it's fortunate he didn't notice the case of Frank Danley (known as "Danny Graves"). He changed his name (by some accounts more than once), and died in a bar fight in Oregon. The first NASCAR national champion from California, he won the 1954 Late Model Sportsman title.

Three of the drivers he cited in the article were from California - Norm Palmer, Dick Meyer and Thonesen. I could comment on the difficulty in finding any info to confirm the Palmer incident, despite it reportedly occurring in the 1980's, but I'll leave that for another time so I don't wander too far off topic.

Now, as far as Hersey, I don't honestly know whether the race was NASCAR sanctioned or not. Lakewood had many races that were not sanctioned. As Don points out, and as I'm well aware, NASCAR has sanctioned many different divisions. In fact, the Modified division was the first sanctioned by NASCAR. As pointed out, the lumping of all of Stock Car racing as "NASCAR", or worse yet - all of racing - as "NASCAR", leads to a lot of this - and it's a problem created by the general sports media.

I'm just pleased that I contributed to getting the man's name right on TNF and in the Tribute Project. Sorry to disappoint you Muzza - and thanks for the faith, but despite being a stronger area of mine, the sanctioning of the race Hersey had his accident in is not one I know.

Now, who wants to contact Mr. Coble at the Savannah newspaper about his article?...any volunteers?...Don?

[Graham Clayton]

According to this article, the race in which Hershey was killed was sanctioned by the National Stock Car Racing Association, or NSCRA, which ran from 1946 to 1951.

 

http://georgiaracing...-as-a-reminder/