Here’s a shot of Florida State Highway A1A just before the cars headed into the South Turn and back onto the beach at Daytona. (Photo Courtesy Georgia Racing Hall of Fame)

      85 Seminole Speedway in Casselberry, Florida, hosted some of the first events promoted by Bill France Sr. after World War II. Shortly after the war ended, a group of local investors graded a quarter-mile track on the Orlando track property. With France on board as the promoter, Seminole Speedway held its first race December 2, 1945. France competed in the event and finished second to Atlanta’s Roy Hall. The track was quickly converted to a 1-mile dirt oval in January 1946 with its first event, (another Bill France production), taking place in February. War hero Red Byron wheeled a Raymond Parks Ford to a win over a star-studded field featuring Bob and Fonty Flock, Hall, France, and Marion McDonald. Over the next seven years, Seminole Speedway hosted numerous stock car and motorcycle racing events. Although the facility doesn’t show up in the record books as ever hosting a NASCAR-sanctioned race, the track (closed in 1954) played an important part in giving NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. the footing needed to launch the organization.

      86 The Daytona Beach Road Course (DBRC) was up and running after World War II as Bill France Sr. staged and Roy Hall won a 33-lap, 100-mile stock car race in early 1946. France promoted several races on the same pre-war 3.2-mile DBRC layout before the 1948 season, when the course was changed and moved south to the less populated Ponce Inlet area. The new 2.2- and 4.2-mile tracks used the beach as its front straight and the Florida Highway A1A as the back chute, joined by a pair of treacherous hairpin turns. Initially, cars were to run the shorter track and motorcycles the longer oval, but due to the tendency of the short course to form sand dunes, it was abandoned after just one season. Red Byron won the first NASCAR-sanctioned event (the Rayson Memorial) on the short course on February 15, 1948, while Fonty Flock grabbed a second at the 1948 Buck Mathis Memorial 150 on the 2.2-mile track on August 8. All stock car races held on the Daytona Beach-Road Course from 1949 until it closed after the 1958 season were contested on the 4.2-mile layout.

      87 Fans attending early NASCAR races at the Daytona Beach-Road Course knew exactly where to go to see most of the action; the South Turn. Located at the end of the paved Highway A1A back straight, cars at high speed often had trouble negotiating the sandy South Turn hairpin. Despite stripes painted on the highway to give drivers an idea of braking points, car after car overshot the turn and flipped over the sand dune at the top of the corner. As the race wore on and the ruts in the sand grew worse, the South Turn became littered with race cars. The fans watching from this area had to be on their toes and constantly scramble to stay out of the way at NASCAR’s first “calamity corner.”

      88 While the Daytona Beach-Road Course is listed as the first race of the 1948 NASCAR Modified season, Bill France Sr. actually introduced his new organization with a non-points exhibition race at Pompano Beach Speedway in Florida January 4, 1948. Buddy Shuman won the event on the original 1¹⁄4-mile dirt Pompano Harness Track, built at a cost of $1.25 million in 1926. According to NASCAR records, Pompano Beach Speedway never hosted an official points-paying race, relegating it to a footnote as the track that hosted the first “unofficial” NASCAR event in 1948.

      89 Built by moonshiners Pat and Harvey Charles during the summer of 1948, Charlotte Speedway was the site of the first NASCAR Strictly Stock race on June 19, 1949. The three-quarter-mile dirt track was located just off Little Rock Road on land leased from the C. C. Allison family. The track opened with a NASCAR Modified race on July 11, 1948, with Red Byron wheeling a Raymond Parks–owned Ford to victory. Less than a year later, Bill France Sr. changed the course of stock car racing history with the first NASCAR Strictly Stock race. In an ironic twist of fate, neither Pat nor Harvey Charles attended the inaugural NSS race as both were in prison after a 1949 bootlegging conviction.

      90 In an effort to attract as many racers as possible to his first NASCAR Strictly Stock race at Charlotte, Bill France Sr. posted a total purse of $5,000, a giant sum of money in 1949 (approximately $50,000 in today’s money). Jim Roper took home the biggest chunk of the kitty earning $2,000 for winning, Fonty Flock got $1,000 for second, and 10th-place finisher Jimmy Thompson got $100. Those placing 15 through 20 got $25 for their efforts while the remainder of the field, positions 21 through 33, went home empty-handed.

      91 Martinsville Speedway (Virginia) owns the distinction of being the only track on today’s NASCAR tour to have held an event during the sanctioning body’s inaugural 1948 season. One of many tracks carved out of the rich, red clay of southern Virginia, H. Clay Earles shaped the small and narrow Martinsville half-mile oval out of a 30-acre cornfield and opened September 7, 1947. A crowd estimated at 10,000 descended on the 750-seat track to see Red Bryon wheel a Raymond Parks 1939 Ford to a 200-lap, 100-mile race win. Less than a year later, Martinsville hosted its first NASCAR-sanctioned event. The July 4, 1948, holiday race (the 26th event on the 1948 NASCAR Modified tour) saw Fonty Flock score one of his division-high 11 wins again driving a Parks Ford to victory.

      The success of the 1948 race prompted Bill France Sr. to partner with Earles and Martinsville to make it one of the original eight speedways to host a 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock inaugural season race. The sixth race on the tour, the September 25 Martinsville SS race drew an estimated 10,000 fans as Red Byron pushed his 1949 Oldsmobile into the lead on the 104th circuit and rolled to a three-lap win over Lee Petty, Ray Erickson, and Clyde Minter. The early success of the two emerging concerns (Martinsville Speedway and NASCAR) along with the personal friendship between France and Earles forged a mutually beneficial partnership that continues today.

       Bill France Sr. works the stopwatch as Red Byron crosses the finish line during time trials at a 1948 NASCAR Modified race at Greensboro Agricultural Fairgrounds Speedway (North Carolina). (Photo Courtesy Ed Samples Jr. Collection)

      92 Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney lent financial support to build Heidelberg Speedway just southwest of Pittsburgh in 1947. In 1949, Bill France Sr. wanted to bring his Strictly Stock brand to the northeast and Heidelberg’s half-mile dirt oval proved to be a willing partner. Lee Petty scored his first NASCAR win in front of a large crowd on October 2, 1949. The 200-lap race took 1:44:25 to complete and Petty averaged 57.458 mph over the 100-mile distance. Dick Linder was second in a Kaiser (ultimately the best finish ever for the brand in NASCAR) with Bill Rexford, Sam Rice, and Sara Christian rounding out the top five.

      Heidelberg wasn’t part of the 1950 and 1951 Strictly Stock schedules, but returned to the Grand National ranks in 1952 where Herb Thomas scored a dominating win by leading 179 of 200 laps in Hubert Westmoreland’s 1951 Oldsmobile. Heidelberg’s next NASCAR race wasn’t until 1956 when Joe Weatherly topped a 22-car NASCAR Convertible Division field. The track took its last major NASCAR bows with Grand National (now Sprint Cup) races in 1959 (Jim Reed) and 1960 (Lee Petty). NASCAR’s final appearance at the now paved track was the Heidelberg-Gulf 100 Grand National East race August 2, 1973. Tommy Collela, the promoter of the track at the time, won the race in his first and only NASCAR career start. Collela closed Heidelberg Speedway after the 1973 season.

      93 Fonty Flock must have been happy that Bill France Sr. flew an air-plane. While winging his way to a meeting, France flew over an old horse track on a large expanse of land near Hillsboro, North Carolina. France and his investor group built a 1-mile dirt track on the site in 1947 and Occoneechee Speedway hosted its first NASCAR race (a Modified division event) June 7, 1948. Flock won the race and two other Modified events, dominating NASCAR races that season. Flock finished fourth behind his brother Bob in the third race of the 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock season. The event drew an estimated crowd of 17,500 and cemented a spot on the NASCAR schedule, hosting at least one race each year throughout the 1968 season. On September 15, 1968, a crowd of 6,700 watched Richard Petty take the Hillsboro 150 Grand National race, beating James Hylton by seven laps, at the last NASCAR checkered flag at the now Orange Speedway. France shut the track down after facing opposition from local religious leaders over Sunday events at the track and replaced the 1969 Orange Speedway dates with runs at Talledega, the newest NASCAR