Some of NASCAR’s pioneers, who turned dusty ovals into a multibillion-dollar car racing industry, will take some laps in Hillsborough, NC this weekend at the annual fund-raising event for the restoration of the historic Occoneechee Speedway. What those racing enthusiasts that attend can hope to see are some of the men who put the pedal to the metal in the sport’s formative years, folks like Archie Smith, who can properly lay claim to being the reigning granddaddy of NASCAR. ”He drove in the very first NASCAR race in September of 1949, and he finished sixth in Charlotte,” said Joe Crews, vice president of the Historic Speedway Group. “He also raced at this track here at Occoneechee. ‘He said NASCAR called him. They told him the other day that he is the sole survivor of the first NASCAR race.” Smith will be riding Saturday with Billy Biscoe, another early NASCAR driver who formerly worked in Richard Petty’s pit crew. Biscoe will be driving a car he built for Ralph Earnhardt, the father of Dale Earnhardt, according to Crews. Rex White, the 1960 NASCAR champion who is “the oldest living NASCAR champion right now,” according to Crews, is expected to be at Saturday’s event, as is 1961 Daytona 500 champion Marvin Panch, The late Wendell Scott, the sport’s first black driver, will be represented by his daughter, Sybil, of Danville, Va., and there will be “just a lot of drivers who never really got famous,” Crews said. “We usually have between 60 and 75 drivers.” Occoneechee remains one of only three race tracks on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is the only dirt track left. The speedway was the third NASCAR race track created.(Charlotte Observer)(8-29-2009)
