The Daytona mystique lives on
By Gaylen Duskey, Special to Turner Sports Interactive
January 16, 2002
10:49 AM EST (1549 GMT)
COMMENTARY
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Gaylen Duskey
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Believe it or not, the NASCAR season did not always start in Daytona, Fla.
Yet with all the whoop-de-do that has gone with and proceeded Speedweeks in Daytona, one may have thought that all racing, except maybe at Indianapolis, started in that coastal Florida town.
There is a reason for that -- it almost has. In 1949, the very first year of NASCAR racing, the season started June 16 at Charlotte. Jim Roper won that race.
Three weeks later, the first NASCAR race was run at Daytona. Red Byron drove his Oldsmobile to the Winner's Circle becoming a trivia question: Who won the first Daytona event?
The following year, things became normal. Almost. The schedule was changed and the race in Daytona became the first race of the season for a while. It was held on Feb. 5, 1950, and became the vanguard that eventually led the to notion of NASCAR opening its season with its own version of the Super Bowl.
Oh, yeah. Harold Kite won the race. It was the only race he won.
But Daytona has still not sown the seed that would make it almost bigger than racing itself. After Marshall Teague's victory in 1951, the race became the second event on the NASCAR schedule. The first race moved south a few miles to West Palm Beach.
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Tim Flock
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Tim Flock won at West Palm Beach on Jan. 20, 1952. Three weeks later Teague, again, won at Daytona.
The following year, Lee Petty won the season-opener at West Palm Beach while Bill Blair won at Daytona. It was one of three races Blair would win.
West Palm Beach would be the season-opening race the following year; and then a bunch of places in North Carolina such as Fayetteville, Hickory, Charlotte and Concord had the honor. As a matter of fact, the season-opening honors moved around quite a bit before they built a mammoth race track in California.
That track was Riverside; it served as the host to the season-opening race from 1965 until 1982, when the opener was moved to Daytona on a permanent basis.
But Daytona always had allure, even if it were not always the opening race of the Winston Cup season.
Many a driver traveled south with stars in their eyes, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. Many more went to Daytona just to see how they could do back in those early days.
One such driver was Floyd "Bud" Chaddock. Chaddock was an extremely successful driver on the dirt tracks of the north, especially in West Virginia and Ohio. He got a chance to drive at Daytona because a car dealer in West Virginia was willing to sponsor him at Daytona.
He went to Daytona driving a Hudson, but timing was not his friend.
"That was the year they came out with those big Chrysler 300s," said Chaddock. "I thought I was making good time then they would blow right past me. Still I really enjoyed it."
Chaddock finished the race well back of the winner, Tim Flock. Flock was driving a Chrysler 300.
"I am glad I had the chance," he said. "It was something I will remember forever."
It was the only Winston Cup (at that time the series was called the Grand National) race Chaddock ever ran.
But for all the dreamers like Chaddock, Daytona did not become a race of legend until it ousted Riverside as the first race of the season in 1982.
That move allowed NASCAR fans a chance to have a racing "hot stove league" to talk about in the off-season. It allowed fans a chance to hear about testing at the track in early January each year. Those test runs draw tremendous amounts of interest. They give the media something to report on. They give the fans something to talk about and the race teams something to shoot for.
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Bobby Allison
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And they are packaged together with a lot of non-Winston Cup racing to become Speedweeks.
Bobby Allison won the first season-opening Daytona (save for the 1950 race) in 1982. He was, so to speak, the first modern era champion.
Since then, the legend that is Daytona has grown with each race having some special memory or another. From Darrell Waltrip's awful Icky Shuffle and helmet spike to Ned Jarrett rooting his son, Dale, home on national television to Dale Earnhardt winning in 1998 after so many years of futility. Then finally last year when Earnhardt's death on the last lap of the race became the sports story of the year. Daytona -- the season-opening race at Daytona -- is now the thing of legend.
Even if it was not always the season-opener.
Note: Gaylen Duskey's column appears every Wednesday and typically addresses the historical side of NASCAR. The opinions listed here are those solely of the writer.
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