Herb Thomas
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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 ...
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Olivia, North Carolina
Olivia is an unincorporated community centered in the Barbecue Township of Harnett County, North Carolina, United States, but also covering parts of Anderson Creek Township near the Lee County line. It is a part of the Dunn Micropolitan Area, which is also a part of the greater Raleigh–Durham–Cary Combined Statistical Area (CSA) as defined by the United States Census Bureau. History Olivia was originally named "Rock Branch" and was founded circa 1865 but the name was changed in 1913 to honor W.J. Olive, who introduced Flue-cured tobacco to the community . Demographics Olivia's Zip Code Tabulation Area (Zip Code 28368) has a population of about 443 as of the 2000 census. The population is 50.6% male and 49.4% female. About 83.1% of the population is white, 11.1% African-American, 5.8% Hispanic, 0.9% Asian, and 2.8% of other races. 1.8% of people are two or more races and there are no American Indians. The median household income is $20,500 with 31.3% of the populat ...
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1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock Series
The 1949 NASCAR Strictly Stock season was the inaugural season of professional stock car racing in the United States. Beginning at Charlotte Speedway on June 19, 1949, the season included eight races and two exhibition races. The season concluded with the Wilkes 200 at North Wilkesboro Speedway on October 16. Raymond Parks won the Owners' Championship, while Red Byron won the Drivers' Championship with a 16th-place finish at the final race of the season. Season recap Race summaries 1949–01 Complete ResultsThe very first NASCAR Strictly Stock race was held June 19 at Charlotte Speedway, a 3/4 mile dirt track in Charlotte, North Carolina owned by Carl C. Allison on Little Rock Rd.. Bob Flock won the pole. Glenn Dunaway was declared the original winner, although a post-race inspection revealed that his car was fitted with illegal springs, causing NASCAR to disqualify him. ;Top Ten Results #34 - Jim Roper #47 - Fonty Flock #22 - Red Byron #2 - Sam Rice #90 - Tim Flock # ...
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Privateer (motorsport)
In motorsport, a privateer is usually an entrant into a racing event that is not directly supported by an automobile or motorcycle manufacturer. Privateers teams are often found competing in rally, circuit racing and motorcycle racing events and often include competitor Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...s who build and maintain their own vehicles and motorcycles. In previous Formula One seasons, privately owned teams would race using the chassis of another team or constructor in preference to building their own car; the Concorde Agreement now prohibits this practice. Increasingly the term is being used in an F1 context to refer to teams who are not at least part-owned by large corporations, such as Williams F1. Many privateer entrants compete for the enjoyment of ...
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NASCAR Cup Series
The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and from 1950 to 1970 it was known as the Grand National Division. In 1971, when the series began leasing its naming rights to the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, it was referred to as the NASCAR Winston Cup Series (1971–2003). A similar deal was made with Nextel in 2003, and it became the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series (2004–2007). Sprint acquired Nextel in 2005, and in 2008 the series was renamed the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (2008–2016). In December 2016, it was announced that Monster Energy would become the new title sponsor, and the series was renamed the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (2017–2019). In 2019, NASCAR rejected Monster's offer to extend the current naming rights deal beyond the end of the season. NASCAR subsequently announced its move to a new tiered sponsorship model beginning with the 20 ...
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NASCAR Grand National
The name NASCAR Grand National Series refers to former names of the following NASCAR series: *National-level stock car series: ** NASCAR Cup Series (known as NASCAR Grand National Series between 1950 to 1970, then the NASCAR Winston Cup Grand National Series between 1971 to 1986) ** NASCAR Xfinity Series (known as NASCAR Busch Grand National Series between 1986 to 2003) *Regional-level stock car series (termed as Grand National Division by NASCAR): ** ARCA Menards Series East (known as NASCAR Busch Grand National North Series between 1987 to 1993; later formally known as NASCAR Grand National Division East Series) **ARCA Menards Series West (known as NASCAR Busch Grand National West in 1970; later formally known as NASCAR Grand National Division West Series) **NASCAR Grand National East Series The NASCAR Grand National East Series was a short-lived racing series created by NASCAR in 1972 to provide a second-tier series, below the Winston Cup Series, to provide races at tracks that ...
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Stock Car Racing
Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing run on oval tracks and road courses measuring approximately . It originally used production-model cars, hence the name "stock car", but is now run using cars specifically built for racing. It originated in the southern United States; the world's largest governing body is the American NASCAR. Its NASCAR Cup Series is the premier top-level series of professional stock car racing. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil and the United Kingdom also have forms of stock car racing. Top-level races typically range between in length. Top-level stock cars exceed at speedway tracks and on superspeedway tracks such as Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Contemporary NASCAR-spec top-level cars produce maximum power outputs of 860–900 hp from their naturally aspirated V8 engines. In October 2007 American race car driver Russ Wicks set a speed record for stock cars in a 2007-season Dodge Charger buil ...
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Daytona Beach And Road Course
The Daytona Beach and Road Course was a race track that was instrumental in the formation of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. It originally became famous as the location where 15 world land speed records were set. Beach and road course Track layout The course started on the pavement of highway A1A (at 4511 South Atlantic Avenue, Ponce Inlet ). A restaurant named "Racing's North Turn" now stands at that location. It went south parallel to the ocean on A1A (S. Atlantic Ave) to the end of the road, where the drivers accessed the beach at the south turn at the Beach Street approach , returned north on the sandy beach surface, and returned to A1A at the north turn. The lap length in early events was , and it was lengthened to in the late 1940s. In the video game ''NASCAR Thunder 2004'' by EA Sports, the course is shortened to about half its distance, but still shows how the basic course was set up. Early events March 29, 1927 Major Henry Segrave and his Sunb ...
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NASCAR Convertible Division
The NASCAR Convertible Division was a division of convertible cars early in NASCAR's history, from 1956 until 1959, although the signature race for convertibles remained a Convertible Division race until 1962. Two remnants of the Convertible Division are still used in the NASCAR Cup Series today: the Bluegreen Vacations Duel (one Daytona 500 qualifying race was reserved for convertibles) and the Rebel 400 (started as a convertible race until the end of the division). History NASCAR purchased SAFE (Society of Auto Sports, Fellowship, and Education)'s all-convertible Circuit of Champions “All Stars” circuit late in 1955. Most drivers did not make the transition to NASCAR's sanction. NASCAR ran the division from 1956 until 1959. Some Convertibles raced against the Grand National hardtop cars in the same race. The 1959 Daytona 500 had one qualifying race for Convertibles and one for the hardtop Grand National cars. 20 of the 59 cars in the Daytona 500 were convertibles. The sp ...
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Merced Fairgrounds
Merced (; Spanish for "Mercy") is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California, United States, in the San Joaquin Valley. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 86,333, up from 78,958 in 2010. Incorporated on April 1, 1889, Merced is a charter city that operates under a council–manager government. It is named after the Merced River, which flows nearby. Merced, known as the "Gateway to Yosemite", is less than two hours by automobile from Yosemite National Park to the east and Monterey Bay, the Pacific Ocean, and multiple beaches to the west. The community is served by the passenger rail service Amtrak, a minor, heavily subsidized airline through Merced Regional Airport, and three bus lines. It is approximately from Sacramento, from San Francisco, from Fresno, and from Los Angeles. In 2005, the city became home to the 10th University of California campus, University of California, Merced (UC Merced), the first research university built in the U. ...
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Martinsville Speedway
Martinsville Speedway is a NASCAR-owned stock car racing short track in Ridgeway, Virginia, just south of Martinsville. At in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Cup Series. The track was also one of the first paved oval tracks in stock car racing, being built in 1947 by partners H. Clay Earles, Henry Lawrence, and Sam Rice, nearly a year before NASCAR was officially formed. It is also the only race track that has been on the NASCAR circuit from its beginning in 1948. Along with this, Martinsville is the only oval track on the NASCAR circuit to have asphalt surfaces on the straightaways and concrete to cover the turns. Layout The track is often referred to as paper clip-shaped and is banked only 12° in the turns. The combination of long straightaways and flat, narrow turns makes hard braking going into turns and smooth acceleration exiting turns a must. The track was paved in 1955 and in 1956 it hosted its first 500-lap event. By the 1970s, a combination of hig ...
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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 ...
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North Wilkesboro Speedway
North Wilkesboro Speedway is a short oval racetrack located on U.S. Route 421, about east of the town of North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, or 80 miles north of Charlotte. It measures and features a unique uphill backstretch and downhill frontstretch. It has previously held races in NASCAR's top three series, including 93 Winston Cup Series races. The track, a NASCAR original, operated from 1949, NASCAR's inception, until the track's original closure in 1996. The speedway briefly reopened in 2010 and hosted several stock car series races, including the now-defunct ASA Late Model Series, USARacing Pro Cup Series, and PASS super late models, before closing again in the spring of 2011. It was re-opened in August 2022 for grassroots racing and will host the 2023 NASCAR All-Star Race and a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, with further renovations planned after the events. History Before the speedway Years before the 1948 founding of NASCAR, Wilkes County and the surround ...
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