Trevor Bayne Takes In The Beach Racing Experience

February 19, 2012

By Kim Roberson

Kim Roberson

There is always something that brings to mind the history of NASCAR when we return to Daytona Beach each February.

This is where it all began, in a smoky hotel lounge a handful of miles east of where Daytona International Speedway sits today.

Years before Bill France Sr. thought of building the 2.5 mile track that sits just off I-95, cars were coming to the beach at Daytona to race against one another on the hard packed sand near the Ponce Inlet. More than half of the race course was sand -- two turns changing from sand to pavement and back again -- and a long strip of beach linked to Route A1A’s pavement. But no one remembers the road part of the race -- just the beach.

The last race on the beach was held in 1958, but to this day fans who come to Daytona for the races take time out to drive their cars -- compacts, pickup trucks, SUV’s and family cars -- along part of that packed sand beach.

On Friday, the defending Daytona 500 Champion Trevor Bayne took a Wood Brothers No. 21 Ford Fusion on the old beach section of the race course. Bayne, who turns 21 years old today, was not only *not* a sparkle in his parents eyes back when those first races were run ­-- his parents weren’t born either.

Photo Courtesy Wood Bros. Racing Trevor Bayne On The Beach

"This is probably the coolest thing I've gotten to do outside of actually racing on other tracks,” smiled the 2011 Daytona 500 Champion as he sat in a chair on the beach on Friday. To Bayne, this is a chance to get a feel for his sport’s history as a youngster who has never driven anything but a “Car of Tomorrow”.

"As a race-car driver, you watch races on the beaches, and I wish we could come back here and get the groove all rutted up and try to miss the potholes. But this is an unbelievable feeling, being on the beach where it all started. This is history right here. I almost want to bottle up the sand and take it with me, because this is where it started for Daytona. This is where it started for NASCAR, and I'm just glad to be a part of it."

Bayne says even today, being several miles inland from the beach, they have to deal with sand hitting the windshields of their cars. In this day and age, they have tear-away strips to provide them with a clear view every time they come in to pit. But the sand on the windshield wasn’t the only problem that drivers “back in the day” had to deal with.

You hear about all of the planning that goes in to setting up a race car to deal with the track every week, where the only thing that changes is the temperature or the wear and tear on the pavement. But imagine trying to prepare a car for a race that is half sand, half pavement. And as the race goes on, the sand breaks down, changing the surface you are racing on even further.

Oh, and don’t forget, back in those days, the driver was their own crew chief -- and often their own pit crew. There was no one sitting on a pit box off to the side, planning what to do to make the car better as you drove around the course. The driver had to take notes in his head and figure out what he could do in the shortest amount of time while stopped for gas.

Bayne says he has a hard time picturing what a mechanic had to do back then. “I think the thing that would be craziest about racing here is -- having two totally different corners. Not just holding your head out to see past the sand, but you're coming into the north turn on sand, and you're going into the south turn on pavement, so how hard would that be setting up the car? Our crew chiefs think they have to scratch their heads now, I can't imagine back then."

Len Wood, co-owner of Bayne’s No. 21 Motorcraft Ford race car, says he remembers clearly the days when he and his family would come down to Daytona from their home in Virginia to participate in the beach race. He especially remembers one scary incident involving his father, Glen Wood, where a stranger appeared out of the brush to lend a hand.

“He was going down that backstretch over there, which is the pavement, and it (the car) caught on fire. He had a fire up on the dash, so he gets out and this gentleman comes out of the palmettos -- and he had a fire extinguisher -- and he put the fire out. My dad climbed back in the car, got it going again and still won the race.”

Glen Wood recounted another incident. "I remember Ralph Moody did a complete flip, landed back on his wheels and kept on going. If you missed the turn, you’d go down the beach, turn around and come back." Wood completed eight of the nine events he participated in, and not once was he involved in an accident.

You can still find men who raced at the beach course back in the day. Some of them still come to the beach themselves to revisit their racing days. They are older, grayer, and their hearing isn’t quite what it used to be, but ask them a question about the races on that old course, and their faces light up and they are willing to tell you all about the adventures of racing not only the other drivers, but the tide and the sand.

Just a few highlights from back in the day include:

• The 1952 race, won by Marshall Teague in a Hudson, was shortened two laps because of the incoming tide. (Teague was nicknamed "King of the Beach" based on his performances on the course, where he won two races.)

• In 1953, a whopping 136 cars started the modified/sportsman race, still NASCAR’s largest field. (Can you imagine 136 race cars starting anywhere in this day and age???)

• Technical infractions caused apparent winners in 1954 and 1955 -- Tim Flock and Fireball Roberts -- to be disqualified handing victories to Lee Petty and Flock. (Flock was able to win twice on the beach course)

• Charlie Scott became the first African-American driver to start a NASCAR premier series race in 1956. Scott, driving one of Carl Kiekhaefer’s famed Chrysler 300s, finished 19th in a field of 76 cars.

• Cotton Owens drove a Pontiac, sponsored by Daytona Beach auto dealer Jim Stephens, to its first NASCAR premier series win in 1957.

• Red Byron, Harold Kite, Bill Blair and Paul Goldsmith were other race winners on the course.

And with that, Speedweeks are now underway, and we are just days away from the 2012 Daytona 500. Let the season begin, and all the best to everyone on the track!

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