Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds
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Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds
Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds is a half mile (0.8 km) dirt track racing, dirt oval near Spartanburg, South Carolina. The track held NASCAR Grand National races in the 1950s and 1960s. History An October 1908 program was found for a horse trotting and racing event at the fair. The first car racing event was held at the track in 1939 and it was promoted by Joe Littlejohn; he promoted events at the track until 1966. Littlejohn was one of 35 people who attended Bill France Sr.'s 1947 meeting which led to the formation of NASCAR; Piedmont was a major hub in NASCAR's first two decades. It held 22 Grand National Series races between 1953 and 1966 as well as two NASCAR Convertible Series races (1956 and 1957). Afterward the NASCAR races ended, the track held races during the fair in (North America) autumn. The track was regraded in 2002 for a legends race to benefit a local racing museum; by 2005 the idea of a museum was scrapped. According to the local visitor's bureau website (in ...
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Spartanburg, South Carolina
Spartanburg is a city in and the seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 38,732 as of the 2020 census, making it the 11th-largest city in the state. For a time, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) grouped Spartanburg and Union Counties together as the Spartanburg metropolitan statistical area, but as of 2018,the OMB defines only Spartanburg County as the Spartanburg MSA. Spartanburg is the second-largest city in the greater Greenville–Spartanburg–Anderson combined statistical area, which had a population of 1,385,045 as of 2014. It is part of a 10-county region of northwestern South Carolina known as "The Upstate", and is located northwest of Columbia, west of Charlotte, North Carolina, and about northeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Spartanburg is the home of Wofford College, Converse University, and Spartanburg Community College, and the area is home to USC Upstate and Spartanburg Methodis ...
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Ralph Moody
Ralph Moody (September 10, 1917 – June 9, 2004) was an American stock car racer. He eventually became a team co-owner of Holman Moody. Background He built his first Model T Ford race car in 1935, and ran it on nights and weekends. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II, and drove a tank under the command of General George S. Patton. He married his wife Mitzi in 1949, and they moved to Florida so that he could race all year. While still living in Massachusetts, after World War II, Ralph Moody was an active midget chauffeur in the now-defunct Bay State Midget Racing Association. NASCAR career Moody won four races in 1956 for owner Pete DePaolo. He finished eighth in the final points, with 21 Top-10 finishes in 35 races. He raced the first third of 1957 until Ford and the other American automobile manufacturers pulled out of racing. Partnership with John Holman Mr. Moody immediately took out a loan against an airplane he owned, and he and John Holman paid $12,000 to ...
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Richard Petty
Richard Lee Petty (born July 2, 1937), nicknamed "The King", is an American former stock car racing driver who raced from 1958 to 1992 in the former NASCAR Grand National and Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Series), most notably driving the No. 43 Plymouth/Pontiac for Petty Enterprises. He was the first driver to win the Cup Series championship seven times (a record now tied with Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson), while also winning a record 200 races during his career. This included winning the Daytona 500 a record seven times and winning a record 27 races (10 of them consecutively) in one season (1967). Statistically, he is the most accomplished driver in the history of the sport, and is one of the most respected figures in motorsports as a whole. Petty remains very active in the sport as both a NASCAR team owner (Petty GMS Motorsports) in the Cup Series, and owner of Petty's Garage (car restoration and modification shop) in Level Cross, North Carolina. Duri ...
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1962 NASCAR Grand National 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 2020 ...
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Jim Paschal
James Roy Paschal, Jr. (December 5, 1926 – July 5, 2004) was a Grand National and Winston Cup Series driver. Career summary Paschal won twenty-five races and twelve poles over his career. Elected to the "Stock Car Racing Hall of Fame" in 1977, he won the World 600 in 1964 and 1967 at Charlotte Speedway. He competed in the first 18 Southern 500s (1950–1967) and won 16 of 73 Grand American races (1969–1972). Paschal's 1967 win in the World 600 established a race record of 335 laps led, which would not be broken until 2016 when Martin Truex Jr. led 392 laps. His strongest racing was found on short tracks where he would finish an average of 11th place. Paschal would find his weakness on road courses, where the sharp corners and the right turns would cause him to finish in an agonizing 27th place on average. He has the most wins in the Cup series among drivers who are not in the NASCAR Hall of Fame and are eligible. Retirement After retiring from racing in 1972 ...
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1961 NASCAR Grand National Series
The 1961 NASCAR Grand National season was the 13th season of Sprint Cup Series, professional stock car racing in the United States, and contested over 52 events from November 6, 1960, to October 29, 1961. Ned Jarrett captured the championship which was run on 20 dirt tracks, 31 paved tracks, and one road course. Seventeen events were considered short track motor racing, short tracks, and 14 events were held at super speedways. Joe Weatherly won the season opening's event at Charlotte, and Jarrett went on to capture the championship with 27,272 points; 830 more than second-place finisher Rex White. Emanuel Zervakis finished third in points, with Joe Weatherly fourth and Fireball Roberts fifth. Season recap Ned Jarrett only won one race in 1961, at Birmingham, Alabama, but his consistency proved to be the winning factor in capturing the season's championship. Second place finisher, and 1960s defending champion, Rex White won 7 times throughout the season, but Jarrett's 33 top- ...
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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 ...
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Ned Jarrett
Ned Jarrett (born October 12, 1932) is an American retired race car driver and two-time NASCAR Grand National Series champion. Because of his calm demeanor, he became known as "Gentleman Ned Jarrett". He is the father of former drivers Glenn Jarrett and Dale Jarrett. Racing career Jarrett was introduced to cars early in life: his father let him drive the family car to church on Sunday mornings when he was nine years old. Jarrett started working for his father in the sawmill by the time he was 12, but racing was what he wanted. Ned drove in his first race in 1952 at Hickory Motor Speedway (North Carolina). He drove a Sportsman Series Ford that he co-owned with his brother-in-law, and finished tenth. This did not go over well with his father. His father told him he could work on cars but not drive them. Once, his brother-in-law was sick for a race and asked Jarrett to fill in for him. Jarrett used his brother-in-law's name and came in second in that race. That worked out so ...
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1960 NASCAR Grand National Series
The 1960 NASCAR Grand National season was the 12th season of professional stock car racing in the United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., .... Emanuel Zervakis was disqualified upon post-race inspection for the April 17 race due to an oversized fuel tank. This would be the last disqualification of a driver who had won the race on the track until 2022. Races Final standings Footnotes References External links1960 NASCAR Grand National results {{NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship * NASCAR Cup Series seasons ...
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Jack Smith (American Racing Driver, Born 1924)
Jack Thomas Smith (May 24, 1924 - October 17, 2001) was an American stock car racer. He raced in the first NASCAR race, in 1949, and is a member of the NMPA Hall of Fame in Darlington, South Carolina. Biography Smith was born in Metropolis, Illinois and then moved to Georgia when he was two years old, settling in Roswell, Georgia. Jack got his start in the automotive industry by working in his father shop at a young age. Jack worked at a service station in the 1940's near Roswell. He began racing against local bootleggers on rough dirt tracks and asphalt superspeedways, and across fields. He began racing in 1947 after building a car. He made his debut in NASCAR's first race, in 1949 at the Charlotte Speedway, and finished 13th. At the 1958 Southern 500 at Darlington, Jack trailed a car blowing up and getting caught in the oil, his car started tumble, flipping his car five times and rolling into the parking lot, after a doctor checked him out, he came out un-injured and drove ho ...
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1959 NASCAR Grand National Series
The 1959 NASCAR Grand National Series was the 11th season of professional stock car racing in the United States. The season, which began on November 9, 1958 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was contested over 44 races. The season ended at Concord Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, on October 25, 1959. Lee Petty was the drivers' champion, while his son, Richard won the NASCAR Rookie of the Year award. Chevrolet won the Manufacturers' Championship. It was also the last season without NASCAR legend David Pearson until 1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, .... Results References * NASCAR Cup Series seasons {{NASCAR-stub ...
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Speedy Thompson
Alfred Bruce "Speedy" Thompson (April 3, 1926, in Monroe, North Carolina – April 2, 1972, in Charlotte, North Carolina) was an American stock car racer in the NASCAR Grand National series from 1950 to 1971, capturing 20 wins along the way. Racing career He made his debut in 1950 and won two of the seven races he competed in 1953 in the #46 Buckshot Morris Oldsmobile (including the 1953 Wilkes 160). Thompson made 15 starts in 1955 and made a serious attack on the Championship the next year, competing in 42 races in Carl Kiekhaefer's factory-backed Chryslers and Dodges, winning eight times and finishing third in points. 1957 saw a switch to Hugh Babb's and his own Chevrolet's and another third-place result, capturing only two victories that year. Speedy drove his own Chevy for the entire 1958 season, and another third place was the reward for his four victories in 38 starts. In 1957, he set the 500-mile speed record for stock cars with an average speed of 100.1 mph. Thi ...
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