Edward Otto

 

Photo finish gave Daytona great start

By ALAN TAYS

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, February 17, 2008

DAYTONA BEACH — For those who think modern NASCAR races take forever to complete, we offer one from 49 years ago that wasn't decided until three days later, when Lee Petty was declared the winner.

Today's 50th running of the Daytona 500 is the perfect opportunity to look back on the first one, on Feb. 22, 1959.

NASCAR's "Strictly Stock" division (later "Grand National," today "Sprint Cup") was 10 years old in 1959, but cars had been racing on the beach at Daytona since shortly after the turn of the century. Founder Bill France wanted a speedway - a 2.5-mile, high-banked, super speedway - to put on a racing spectacle like no one had ever seen.

Thus was born Daytona International Speedway, built in 10 months for $3 million.

The new track was struck by tragedy before its official opening. On Feb. 11, 1959, 11 days before the first Daytona 500, Daytona resident Marshall Teague was killed testing an Indianapolis-style car while trying to set the world closed-course speed record. Teague would have celebrated his 37th birthday on the day of the first Daytona 500.

Teague's death didn't stop NASCAR's plans. Two days before the 500, two 100-mile races were run to set the field. The first was for convertibles, the second for hardtop cars. Shorty Rollins won the convertible race, Bob Welborn the hardtop one.

An unbalanced field

In the 500, the hardtops, led by Welborn in a Chevy, started on the inside row. The convertibles, which included a 21-year-old Richard Petty (racing the No. 43 for the first time), were in the outside row.

NASCAR had run a convertible series since 1956, but the cars had never run on a track like Daytona (neither had the hardtops, for that matter).

To try to boost the convertible field, France offered $1,000 to its entrants.

Marvin Panch was one of the takers, but he soon had second thoughts. The convertibles were considerably slower than the hardtops. "We got lapped about every 16, 18 laps," recalled Panch, 81. "And we had to drive by the mirror so we wouldn't get run over by the hardtops. It really wasn't that good of a deal for me."

Panch installed a tonneau cover on his 1958 Ford Thunderbird to help with aerodynamics, but it proved more hindrance than help when some of the fasteners came undone.

"I had to drive with one arm holding the tonneau cover to keep it from beating me to death," Panch said, "and the other hand on the steering wheel and watching the mirror so I wouldn't get run over."

Mixing it up, side by side

Fifty-nine cars took the 500's green flag from starter Johnny Bruner Sr., who stood on the track apron. It was a competitive race right from the start, with Welborn, Tom Pistone and Joe Weatherly trading the lead 10 times in the first 22 laps. Daytona resident Glenn "Fireball" Roberts led the next 21 laps, but a broken fuel pump ended his day on Lap 57.

For the next 106 laps, Johnny Beauchamp, Pistone and Jack Smith traded the lead, with Smith, an Atlantan who was voted NASCAR's "Most Popular Driver" in 1958, leading a race-high 57 laps. The elder Petty, 44, NASCAR's 1958 Grand National champion, took the lead for the first time on Lap 150, and it was a two-man race between him and Beauchamp, a 35-year-old driver from Harlan, Iowa, the rest of the way.

They swapped the lead almost a dozen times the rest of the race, but Petty's Oldsmobile was a car length in front when Bruner waved the white flag.

Weatherly, though a lap down, was racing beside the leaders. As the three cars came off Turn 4, Weatherly went high, Beauchamp went low and Petty took the middle. That's the way they crossed the finish line, but who had won? According to Daytona 500: An Official History, by Bob Zeller, France was standing below the flag stand behind the fence, a yard in front of the finish line. He and Bruner thought Beauchamp had won, but they weren't certain. Neither was 25-year-old Bill France Jr., who was in the control tower. Nat Kleinfield announced Beauchamp as the winner over the public-address system, which elicited boos from the crowd.

Too close to call

Bernard "Benny" Kahn, sports editor of the Daytona Beach News-Journal, polled a dozen writers, all of whom thought Petty was the winner.

Both drivers headed for Victory Lane, but Beauchamp got there first and went through the ceremony. "I figured I had him about like this," he said, holding his hands about 18 inches apart.

Speedway photographer T. Taylor Warren was shooting the race from the grass in front of pit road. He initially didn't realize the potential significance of his finish-line photo.

"I didn't realize that the thing was so close," said Warren, 82, who still works as a racing photographer. "I just wanted a shot of the finish because they'd use that in the (next year's) program."

After he developed his film, however, Warren told NASCAR Executive Manager Pat Purcell, "Pat, we've got a problem." Warren's picture, the first one France saw, showed Petty ahead of Beauchamp. But it wasn't conclusive - the cars hadn't reached the finish line.

Five hours after the end of the race France announced the result was unofficial. That guaranteed more headlines. "RACE PHOTOS SUPPORT PETTY" was the lead item in Monday's Daytona Beach Evening News. "Amateur's Photo Shows Petty Ahead At Finish" was the header on a story about a picture taken by a Minnesota man.

Instant replay to the rescue

The Petty family remained in Daytona Beach, awaiting the decision they were confident would go their way. "I think we just hung around (NASCAR headquarters) all day long, talking to different people and waiting to find out what kind of decision they were going to make," Richard Petty said. "I think we aggravated everybody. Everybody we talked to, we tried to get them on our side."

Finally, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, after France and NASCAR Vice President Ed Otto viewed the Hearst Corp.'s News of the Week newsreel footage, which had been sent from New York, the decision came down. Petty was the winner.

He was reached by phone at a local motel, where he and his wife were having dinner. He said he was in no hurry to pick up his trophy and $19,050 winner's check.

"I'm still eating my supper and I'm going to finish it," he said. "This is a pretty good piece of ham and man, I'm hungry. Then I'll be downtown."

"It was the greatest thing from the (public relations) standpoint that could happen," Richard Petty said. "If Lee Petty had won on Sunday night, it would have been in the Monday paper, then it would have been forgotten. The way it was, France was smart enough, or somebody was, to say 'OK, the longer we make this thing last, the more publicity we're going to get.' " So it wound up really being a real good opening for the Daytona track."

Staff researcher Melanie Mena contributed to this story.