Sports Memories: Fireball Roberts

Much fanfare is being made this week regarding the 25th anniversary of Richard Petty’s record setting victory in the 1984 Firecracker 400. While Petty is certainly worthy of being honored, let’s also not forget the accomplishments of the man who won the first Firecracker race 50 years ago: Glenn “Fireball” Roberts.

When the Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959, the big summer race at the speedway was originally scheduled to be an open wheel (Indy car) race. However, after a flurry of accidents at an April event, open wheel racing was permanently barred from the track.

That left an opening for a second NASCAR event to go with the season opening Daytona 500.

Originally called the Firecracker 250, the race was 100 laps until being expanded to the current 400 miles (160 laps) in 1963.

A Florida native, Roberts actually earned his nickname for his prowess as a fireball-throwing pitcher for the Zellwood Mud Hens American Legion baseball team, rather than due to his racing style.

His racing career started at weekend dirt track races while attending the University of Florida.

He began racing on the NASCAR circuit in 1950 and claimed victory at the Occoneechee Speedway in only his third start.

Over the next 15 years, he usually raced only a portion of the NASCAR schedule, but still claimed 33 career wins and 93 top five finishes (in 206 career races).

Having been raised only an hour from Daytona (in Apopka), Roberts had particular success racing at what was basically his home track.

He led 21 laps in the first Daytona 500 at the Daytona International Speedway in February 1959 before fuel pump problems eventually left him in 45th place.

Five months later, Roberts took the poll for the first Firecracker 250 and then led 84 of the 100 laps to claim the victory.

In 17 career starts at the Daytona International Speedway, Roberts claimed nine polls and seven victories (including qualifying races).

In 1962 he became the first driver to win both the Daytona 500 and Firecracker 250 in the same year.

Roberts enjoyed particular success in the Firecracker race as he won the race three times (1959, 1962, 1963) in five years.

Sadly, his career ended prematurely as Roberts was severely burned in an accident at the World 600 in Charlotte and he died on July 2, 1964.

Despite his relatively short career, Roberts was selected as one of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers and inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame.

NASCAR Remembers Its Roots

The National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) will return to its roots this weekend with the running of the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 in Martinsville, Virginia.

The last original NASCAR sanctioned track still hosting a Cup Series event, the Martinsville Speedway is the shortest track on tour at .526 miles. The Bristol, Tennessee track, which hosted last week’s race, is the second shortest at .533.

Constructed more than a decade before the Daytona International Speedway, the Martinsville Speedway hosted its first NASCAR sanctioned race on July 4, 1948 and a year later was one of eight tracks to host a race in the initial year of what was then called the Strictly Stock Series and is now known as the Sprint Cup Series. After hosting one race in 1949, Martinsville has hosted two Sprint Cup races every year since 1950. Other than being paved in 1955, the track configuration has not changed from its original design. The track originally had seating for 750 spectators, but today has a capacity of 60,000.

While short tracks played an important role in laying the foundation for the success of NASCAR, as the national and international appeal of the sport has increased over the last two decades, a number of smaller tracks with longstanding traditions have been removed from the Sprint Cup schedule in favor of larger tracks in locations that expand the exposure of the sport to new audiences. Bristol, Martinsville and the Richmond International Speedway (.75 miles) are the only tracks remaining on the Sprint Cup schedule with a lap distance under a mile.

Richmond hosted its first race in 1953 and has held two NASCAR Sprint Cup events every year since 1959. Originally a half mile track, it expanded to .75 miles in 1988 and has a spectator capacity of just over 112,000.

The Bristol Motor Speedway was completed in 1961 and has hosted two NASCAR Sprint Cup races every year since. The Speedway began with 18,000 seats for its initial race on July 30, 1961 and has undergone a number of grandstand renovations to increase capacity to its current level of 160,000.

Though NASCAR made its initial foray into the Mid-West and West Coast markets in the 1950s, it took the sport decades to finally gain a solid foothold outside the traditional Southern hotbed. Since 1988, NASCAR has brought the NASCAR experience to strategic locations across the country including Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Phoenix, Sonoma, Fort Worth and Las Vegas.

The price for this nationalization of the sport was the reduction of NASCAR races at traditional home tracks, primarily in the South. While Bristol, Martinsville and Richmond have managed to survive, other places such as Rockingham, North Wilkesboro and Nashville did not.

However, there has been talk that Martinsville could be the next casualty of the nationalization of NASCAR. Because the region around Martinsville has never had a booming economy, even in good economic times the track has struggled to sell out despite having one of the lowest spectator capacities on the circuit.

While the global economic crisis might at first blush seem to increase the pressure on NASCAR to move at least one of the Martinsville races, I contend that the opposite is true.

Though the overall fan base has grown over the last decade, the greatest concentration of loyal die-hard fans remains in the South and specifically in rural areas of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Many of these fans have been life-long NASCAR lovers and cherish the history and tradition of the sport.

As the last original NASCAR track, Martinsville represents an important connection to the past and at the same time can also be a key part of the future for the sport. NASCAR generally has done a very good job walking the tight rope of embracing the past while also looking toward the future. At a time when they are needed most, many loyal fans could become disenchanted with NASCAR if it eliminates the annual trips to Martinsville.

Rather than consider dropping Martinsville from the schedule, I hope NASCAR will instead recognize the value of its oldest track and ensure that the Martinsville Speedway remains an important part of the annual circuit for decades to come.

Daytona 500 is Full of Surprises

Today’s 51^st running of the Daytona 500 is sure to be full of thrills and excitement, but it will have a hard time topping the “battle” that occurred 30 years ago.

The hot-tempered drivers of today have nothing on old-time drivers Donnie Allison, Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough as 30 years ago the trio came to blows on the infield after Yarborough and Donnie Allison crashed on the final lap of the 500 mile race.

With Allison clinging to the lead, the two cars tangled in the final turns and both men soon found their cars off the track and stopped in the infield. They were helpless as Richard Petty held off Darrell Waltrip and A.J. Foyt to claim the sixth of his record seven Daytona 500 titles.

As Petty celebrated, the CBS cameras quickly turned back to Donnie Allison and Yarborough, who had both gotten out of their cars and were jawing in the infield. Donnie’s brother Bobby soon joined the duo and his arrival helped escalate the war of words into an actual physical battle.

Of course the tradition of temper displays by NASCAR drivers is alive and well as recent battles between Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick as well as Kurt Busch versus Tony Stewart illustrate.

No doubt the racing on the track will be exciting today, but let’s see if tempers off the track come close to reaching those experienced 30 years ago.