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1950 Southern 500
The inaugural Southern Five-Hundred (Southern 500 since 1951) was an automobile race held at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina on September 4, 1950, as part of the 1950 NASCAR Grand National. While the 1950 race was co-sanctioned by NASCAR and its rival Central States Racing Association, all subsequent Southern 500 races were hosted exclusively by NASCAR. It is NASCAR's first 500-mile race, and still holds status as one of NASCAR's premier events. Since there had never been a 500-mile stock car race and Darlington was NASCAR’s first superspeedway, drivers and teams came to the event with unique strategies. Darlington set the precedent for race strategies to come at tracks like the Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Background The track at the time was a four-turn oval. The track's first two turns are banked at twenty-five degrees, while the final two are banked two degrees lower at twenty-three degrees. The front stretch (the location ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1950 In NASCAR
This category contains articles on individual years in NASCAR. {{Commons cat, NASCAR seasons Seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ... Seasons in stock car racing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acre
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texa ... and United States customary units#Units of area, US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet, and approximately 4,047 m2, or about 40% of a hectare. Based upon the International yard and pound, international yard and pound agreement of 1959, an acre may be declared as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. The acre is sometimes abbreviated ac but is usually spelled out as the word "acre".National Institute of Standards and Technolog(n.d.) General Tables of Units of Measurement . Traditionally, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Firestone Tire And Rubber Company
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is a tire company founded by Harvey Firestone (1868–1938) in 1900 initially to supply solid rubber side-wire tires for fire apparatus, and later, pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles, and the company was a pioneer in the mass production of tires. Harvey Firestone had a personal friendship with Henry Ford, and used this to become the original equipment supplier of Ford Motor Company automobiles, and was also active in the replacement market. In 1988, the company was sold to the Japanese Bridgestone Corporation. History Early-to-mid-20th century Firestone was originally based in Akron, Ohio, also the hometown of its archrival, Goodyear, and two other midsized competitors, General Tire and Rubber and BFGoodrich. Founded on August 3, 1900, the company initiated operations with 12 employees. Together, Firest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cotton Owens
Everett "Cotton" Owens (May 21, 1924 – June 7, 2012) was a NASCAR driver. For five straight years (1957–61), Owens captured at least one Grand National Series win. Owens was known as the "King of the Modifieds" for his successes in modified stock car racing in the 1950s. Early racing career Owens was born in Union, South Carolina. His career began after his tour in the U.S. Navy in 1946, in the Modified division that would eventually be organized by NASCAR and pre-dated their Stock Car (Grand National, later Cup) division. Owens deservedly earned the nickname "King of the Modifieds" by claiming over 200 feature wins, including the prestigious Gulf Coast championship race. In 1949 he entered 23 races and won 19 of them. In 1951 he sped to victories all over the South, racking up 54 wins. Cotton put together a string of 24 straight wins in 1950–51, a feat he repeated twice! Switching from Dodge to the Chrysler-powered Plymouth he continued to dominate the Modified circuit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gober Sosebee
Gober C. Sosebee (October 15, 1915 – November 11, 1996) was an American racecar driver. He won on the Daytona Beach Road Course in 1949, 1950, and 1951. He was born in Dawson County, Georgia, and began his career in 1940 at Atlanta's Lakewood Speedway. Sosebee also won two Grand National Series races, one in 1952 and another in 1954. He also had four pole positions (including his first NASCAR race at Daytona Beach) and 33 top-10 finishes during his career, and also ran five races in the NASCAR Convertible Division. Racing Reference; Retrieved May 1, 2008 His son, David Sosebee, was also a NASCAR driver. Motorsports career results NASCAR ([...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond Sr. (December 5, 1902June 26, 2003) was an American politician who represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to 2003. Prior to his 48 years as a senator, he served as the 103rd governor of South Carolina from 1947 to 1951. Thurmond was a member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party until 1964, when he joined the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party for the remainder of his legislative career. He also 1948 United States presidential election, ran for president in 1948 as the Dixiecrat candidate, receiving over a million votes and winning four states. A staunch opponent of civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s, Thurmond Strom Thurmond filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, conducted the longest speaking filibuster ever by a lone senator, at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length, in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In the 1960s, he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1964 Ci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herb Thomas
Herbert Watson Thomas (April 6, 1923 – August 9, 2000) was a stock car racer who was one of NASCAR's most successful drivers in the 1950s. Thomas was NASCAR's first multi-time Cup Champion. Background Born in the small town of Olivia, North Carolina, Thomas worked as a farmer and worked in a sawmill in the 1940s before his interest turned to auto racing. NASCAR career In 1949, Thomas took part in NASCAR's first Strictly Stock (the forerunner to the Grand National and ultimately the modern NASCAR Cup Series) race and made four starts in the series' first year. The following year, he made thirteen appearances in the series, now renamed the Grand National division. He scored his first career win at Martinsville Speedway in a privateer Plymouth. He started the 1951 season with moderate success in his Plymouth (plus one win in an Oldsmobile) before switching to a Hudson Hornet, at the suggestion of fellow driver Marshall Teague. Thomas won the Southern 500 rather handi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Widenhouse
Bill Widenhouse (born June 17, 1929 - died June 29, 1995) was a NASCAR Grand National driver from Midland, North Carolina, USA. He was the 1955 NASCAR Modified Champion. Career During his 14-year NASCAR career, Widenhouse managed to earn two top-five finishes, five top-ten finishes, completed 4131 laps for , and earned $3,275 in take-home pay ($ when considering inflation). Bill's average starting position was 22nd and his average finish position was 21st. This driver was a competitor at the 1955 Southern 500 The 1955 Southern 500, the sixth running of the event, was a NASCAR Grand National Series event. The event was held on September 5, 1955, at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. This race spanned 500 miles on a paved oval track. A ... and received a ninth-place finish as the result of the race. Widenhouse's best finishes were on tri-oval intermediate tracks where he would finish in 18th place on average. His worst finishes would come on road courses with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wally Campbell
Wallace Campbell (July 16, 1926 – July 17, 1954) was an American stock car, midget, and sprint car racer from Trenton, New Jersey. He was the 1951 NASCAR Modified champion and the 1953 AAA Eastern Division Sprint Car Rookie of the Year. Campbell was killed practicing for an AAA Midwestern Division sprint car race at Salem, Indiana on July 17, 1954. He was one day past his 28th birthday. Career highlights Campbell began his stock car career at Flemington Fairgrounds in New Jersey in 1947, where he promptly rolled the car over. By the end of 1947, he was the champion of the newly formed American Stock Car Racing Association (ASCRA). He finished 6th in points in 1948, then won the title in both 1949 and 1950. 1951 brought the NASCAR Modified title, and in 1952 he finished second in points to Buck Baker in the NASCAR Speedway Division. In 1953 he won five AAA sprint car races after getting a late start in August. He attempted qualifying at Indianapolis in 1954, but was sent home t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louise Smith
Louise Smith (July 31, 1916, in Barnesville, Georgia – April 15, 2006) was tied for the second woman to race in NASCAR at the top level. She was known as "the first lady of racing." She went as a spectator to her first NASCAR race at the Daytona Beach Road Course in 1949. She could not stand watching the races, so she entered her family's shiny new Ford coupe in the race and rolled it. Her hometown Greenville, South Carolina paper featured photos of the wreck, and the town knew about it before she got home. The race was the first race to feature three female drivers ( and [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indianapolis. The event is traditionally held over Memorial Day weekend, usually the last weekend of May. It is contested as part of the IndyCar Series, the top level of American open-wheel car racing, a formula colloquially known as "Indy car racing". The track itself is nicknamed the "Brickyard", as the racing surface was paved in brick in the fall of 1909. One yard of brick remains exposed at the start/finish line. The event, billed as ''The Greatest Spectacle in Racing'', is considered part of the Triple Crown of Motorsport along with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix, with which it typically shares a date. The official attendance is not disclosed by Speedway management, but the permanent seating capacity is upwards ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstate Highway System
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. The system extends throughout the contiguous United States and has routes in Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. The U.S. federal government first funded roadways through the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, and began an effort to construct a national road grid with the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921. In 1926, the United States Numbered Highway System was established, creating the first national road numbering system for cross-country travel. The roads were still state-funded and maintained, however, and there was little in the way of national standards for road design. U.S. Highways could be anything from a two-lane country road to a major multi-lane freeway. After Dwight D. Eisenhower became president in 1953, his administration ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
