The First Race on the Asphalt

So as not to hurt any feelings or appear to be showing favoritism, let’s start with the first race.

As part of my obsession with the track, I’ve spent some time in the public library going through microfilm and trying to document the results of all the races. There are some years when the two daily papers evidently didn’t think much of auto racing. (I guess things have come full circle.) There are some races where I can’t even document a winner. Some of the early years only have the top three finishers listed. On a good day, they would show at least the top five. In 1958, the Banner didn't even list race results!

Some races are well documented. Believe it or not, around the 1962, ’63, ’64 period, not only did they list results in the paper but had a top ten run down at every five laps! Along with start positions, car numbers, and more, those are a real treasure.

But back to July 19, 1958. At a later time we’ll get into the whys and hows of the track being converted from the mile dirt to the half-mile asphalt. Because of the construction, the track wasn’t ready until July.

Through the years I’ve been fortunate enough to have talked to many of the drivers who competed that night. What I hadn’t realized until hearing their stories is that for the most part they were headed into uncharted waters.

Weekly local racing had been going on in the Nashville area for 11 years. There were dozens of tracks within driving distance, and in those days drivers raced all over.

But nearly all of the tracks were dirt. The new track at the Fairgrounds was different. It was asphalt. It would take an entirely different driving technique and car setup from what they were used to in order to succeed on asphalt. According to a story in the “Tennessean” the Saturday morning of the opening race, Bob Reuther, Eddie Mitchell, and the Fryar brothers out of Chattanooga (Harold and Freddy) were among the few drivers with asphalt experience.

To put into perspective how few asphalt tracks were in existence at the time, only 23 Grand National (now Sprint Cup) races out of 51 were held on asphalt in 1958. Those races were held on a total of 17 different tracks (including Nashville), and two of those were road courses.

Another new adjustment for the drivers as noted in the newspaper would be learning to drive on a flat track. The Legion Bowl was significantly banked, while the quarter-mile track at the Fairgrounds was flat. (It was reconfigured before the 1962 season and the turns were somewhat banked.) So they are going from dirt to asphalt, banked turns to flat turns.  

There were a number of advantages to asphalt over the dirt surface of the Legion Bowl (where the weekly races had been held for 8 years), but one often overlooked was track drying. If one of those typical summer afternoon showers came through Saturday afternoon at the Bowl, it could turn the track into a quagmire and delay or cancel the races. As co-promoter Bennie Goodman stated, “We have an excellent draining system and it only takes a few minutes to sweep off the puddles,” at the new paved track.

Here's how the track looked just a few days before opening day:

 

The racing program consisted of only one division. Hard to believe with the seven, eight, or more divisions of today. After qualifying the 40 expected cars, the schedule showed three heat races, a match race pitting the six fastest cars, a consolation, and a 30-lap feature. Every race except the feature would have an inverted start.

Another change from the Legion Bowl is that the feature would now start 24 cars instead of the 20 that would start a feature at the Bowl. The drivers would be racing for a total purse of $1,750 – the highest weekly purse in Nashville history at the time.

As qualifying came to a close, Bob Reuther used his asphalt experience to set fast time with a lap of 16.93 seconds. Reuther would win the consolation race with a last lap pass of Herb Lewis, but the star of the night would be a driver from Chattanooga driving a car from Shelbyville.

Charlie Griffin traveled the circuit from his Chattanooga home to tracks in Georgia, Alabama, and of course Tennessee. The track at Birmingham had recently been paved, so Griffin had some asphalt experience. He put it to good use, winning the first heat race, the Match race, and the feature. The car he drove was a V-8 Chevy fielded by Hart Hastings out of Shelbyville. Ironically, it was a Hastings-prepared car driven by Freddy Fryar that had won the final race at the Legion Bowl at the end of the 1957 season.

Following Griffin across the line in the feature were Jimmy Griggs, Reuther, Bobby Celsor, and Jack Marlin (yes, Coo Coo’s brother). Three of the five would go on to win track championships over the next six years.

Here is the inaugural race winner. Photo from the Bob Reuther collection.

In the second heat, Malcolm Brady suffered a fractured rib when his car flipped an estimated five and a half times. Reports said the car skidded and rolled 200 feet. During one of the flips, the car landed on its roof, crushing the roof and pinning Brady’s hands on the steering wheel. Brady was trying a revolutionary air suspension, and he quickly decided that wasn’t the way to go. Jimmy Sawyer went on to win the heat, with Charles Binkley (not the famous driver of the 125) winning the third heat. 

These two photos courtesy of Malcolm Brady's collection. He's lucky to have walked away. Notice the little cannister inside the left rear wheel. That's part of the "air suspension" system.

 A crowd of 9,878 fans saw a little bit of everything. Coo Coo Marlin was leading the first heat, but was knocked into the turn three wall by Reuther. Lewis, running third, was caught up in the mess and was also eliminated, allowing Griffin through for the win.

And with that a new era of weekly racing in Nashville was ushered in. Nashville race fans and drivers had no idea what was on the horizon.