Their First Five Hundred Mile Race example essay topic

C entries following the times of ancient Rome, the four- horsepower chariots are no longer the fastest set of wheels in town. The illustrious Ben Hurt would be proud of the racing machines of today. Motor sports have a long history of fortification. Comp trolling organizations, immense speedways, eminent drivers, and unique automobiles paved this history. Behold the history of NASCAR, the NHRA, drag racing, muscle cars, and the Muscle Car Era. The idea of racing cars as a spectator sport was an advertising idea of Henry Ford's.

Ford developed a team of racecar drivers to race his Model T, drivers that would eventually be great names to motor sports; drivers such as Ed Winfield, Harry Miller, and Pierre Bertrand. The competitive driving style made Model T owners want their car to be as fast as the race cars they watched on race day. As a response to this demand Ford began to manufacture high performance aftermarket parts for Model T roadsters. (Bakerville web) Model T racing became so popular that small racing circuits started forming and all types of automobiles were raced. The racing of stock automobiles became known as stock car racing and some financiers started funding stock car racing events. One of these financiers was Bill France.

A former driver and mechanic that towered to six feet seven inches tall, he promoted stock car events in the Daytona, Florida are and throughout the southeast upon moving to the area in the 1930's. Bill France fore felt the success of stock car racing if it was sanctioned by a reputable organization. Consequent to intuition thirty-five men assembled on top of the Daytona Beach Hotel in December of 1947; these thirty-five men consisted of businessmen, moon shiners, racecar drivers, promoters, and mechanics. Some of the mechanics were so authentic that they still had grease on their hands. They organized a stock car racing organization that would combine the entire array of small independent racing organizations that tried to claim superiority over each other, each also had their own national champion. The men formed a new organization under Bill France that set the rules and standards of stock car racing.

Now, the infant organization needed a name; some considered were National Championship Stock Car Circuit and National Stock Car Racing Association. These were not satisfying though. Red Vogt suggested National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. NASCAR was adopted as the name of the new stock car racing organization. The first NASCAR race was held on Daytona Beach six days before the official papers were finalized. Robert 'Red' Byron in Raymond Parks', 1939, Ford won that event.

The beach race was the first of fifty-two events that were run that inaugural season. In 1948, a circuit for new cars, postwar models, was planned but never materialized; cars were excessively scarce. Availability increased and by 1949, cars were flowing into dealerships. NASCAR tried the idea again, first as part of sub-event in southern Florida. The event was moderately successful so France made plans for a "strictly stock" race the spring on the three-quarter mile dirt oval in Charlotte, N.C. The response to the strictly stock race was immediate; fans flocked to the track. The race had a thirty-three-car field that included a female driver, Sarah Christian; she started thirteenth in her husband's Ford.

Jim Roper won the first "strictly stock" event and Glen Dunn away became the circuit's first disqualification because his Ford was found to have altered rear springs in the post race inspection. (Carlton 27, 28) Quickly seven more events were scheduled. In 1950, the circuit grew and was named the NASCAR Grand National Series. That season the circuit held it's first race on a paved track and tried their first five hundred mile race. No one was sure if a stock car could last five hundred miles so seventy-five cars were allowed to try. Both occurred at Darlington Superspeedway in Darlington, S.C. on the first Monday of September.

The circuit grew to a high of sixty-two races in 1964 and other immense tracks were built to host the events. In 1959, Daytona's two and a half mile superspeedway opened and joined the next season beside mile and a half facilities in Charlotte, N.C. and Atlanta, G.A. Rockingham, N.C. joined in 1965. And in 1969, Dover Raceway, Michigan International Speedway, and Talladega Superspeedway; Talladega Is an amazing 2.66 miles long and has thirty-three degree banking. A national fuel shortage threatened to halt NASCAR racing until France shortened all races by ten percent and had a study don't that proved auto racing in America used less fuel than most other sports. A big step for the circuit came in 1971, when R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company assumed sponsorship of the division. Lending their marketing acumen to an already thriving sport, a huge growth spurt followed as the series dropped to running just thirty races per season, all of them major events.

The new, slimmer but more competitive division became known as the NASCAR Winston Cup Series as it entered it's modern era of approximately thirty races per season in 1972. Conceivably, the biggest boost came from the 1979 running of the Daytona 500. It was the first of NASCAR's events to get live start-to-finish coverage by a major television network. Bill France retired as the President of NASCAR in 1972. He turned the organization reins over to his son Bill France Jr. Bill France Jr. has spoken of and produced growth ever since.

(Carlton 28) NASCAR's success would not have been as vast without Daytona Superspeedway. In the mid 1950's Bill France had a dream of moving the Daytona races off of the sands of Daytona Beach and onto a big, fast, high banked track. It took him nearly five years to get local approval and the finances to build such a place. He built it in a swamp near the airport on the undeveloped western side of the city. Daytona International Speedway would be a temple of speed upon completion in 1959. Daytona International Speedway's huge thirty-one degree turns, a "D" shaped front stretch, and a three thousand feet long back straightaway were unique features of the facility.

It was wide and fast, designed for speed and close competition. It proved itself in the inaugural running of the Daytona 500 in 1960. Cotton Owens was the top qualifier for that first race with a speed of 143.198 miles per hour; the fastest lap at Darlington hadn't reached the 120-mile per hour level. Two years later, Marvin Patch drove a one of Smokey Yunick's Pontiac to victory lane in the prestigious event; doing so at an average speed of 149.601 miles per hour, identical to the third decimal point to the fastest lap turned in the Indy 500 qualifying the prior year. The 1983 Daytona 500 saw an event record of fifty-nine lead changes. In 1984 Cale Yarborough became the first to break the two hundred mile per hour speed barrier on the track only to flip his Oldsmobile while trying to go even faster on his second qualifying lap.

In 1987 Bill Elliot broke Cale Yarborough's NASCAR speed record with 210.364 miles per hour. Soon after that speeds were reduced with restrict or plates as a concession to safety. Since 1982 the Daytona 500 has served as the opening event of the Winston Cup Series and runs at a time of the year when most motor sports are at idle. (Carlton 52) Drag racing was also very popular sport in the early part of the twentieth century. There were small organizations all throughout the country but no major ones.

Drag racing speeds first topped one hundred miles per hour in the 1930's. In 1949, the California Timing Association held its first speed week at the Bonneville sand flats and the first official drag strip was an abandoned airfield in southern California. The drag strip was named Santa Anna Drags. Wally Parks, a drag racing pioneer, became editor of the monthly performance automobile magazine Hot Rod. This gave him the forum and power to create the National Hot Rod Association, also referred to as the NHRA.

He created the NHRA to "create order from chaos" by instituting safety rules and performance standards that helped legitimize the sport. NHRA held its first official race in April of 1953 on a slice of the Los Angles County Fairgrounds parking lot in Pomona, CA. (Carlton 102,105) That slice of parking lot, four decades later, has now undergone $6,000,000 in expansion and renovation; it hosts the NHRA season opener. (Carlton 102,105) Along with racing facilities and organizations the automobiles evolved too. Muscle cars were the product of these two sports triumphant success. Muscle cars made such an impact on American history they got their own era, the Muscle Car Era.

It was the 1960's and 70's, mainly the late 60's and 70's. These cars were a new breed from their smooth driving, low performance predecessors. The granddaddy of the muscle cars was the Chevrolet Corvette. "Project Corvette" was launched in 1953 as low priced American competitors to the expensive European imports. Russian engineer Zora Ark us Duntov is the official engineer or Corvette but it is rumored that a less know engineer actually fathered the Corvette and Mr. Duntov helped him get his ideas out to the world with his reputation as a world class engineer. America's first super car was genuinely innovative, almost experimental at times.

Corvette was the very first automobile to be equipped with an active ride suspension system. Corvette established the American sports cars industry's limits; amazingly it was the first and the best. (Nichols 48) The Corvette left the world astonished by its quality of performance so American automobile manufacturers took notice. The first of them to take action was a failing division of General Motors named Pontiac. (Nichols 64) Pontiac rested the company upon one man's shoulders and his dream of excellence, in who created the breed that would be known as the Pontiac GTO. The 1964 Pontiac GTO was the "father of the Muscle Car Era".

GTO, known also as the "goat" but properly named Gran Turismo Omologato, was aimed at NASCAR and the NHRA but took the public by storm. Pontiac wanted to take a stock Temptest body, beef it up with better suspension and transmission, and drop a high performance 389 cubic inch engine under the hood. (Hirsch 192) General Motors disapproved of this due to their power to weight ratio policy. When Pontiac presented the GTO to the board at General Motors things got violent, it got so intense that a fistfight almost erupted. The board assured Pontiac that the GTO would never go into production. Pontiac retaliated by using a stock 326 cubic inch engine with the high performance 389 cubic inch engine as an option.

A compromise between Pontiac and General Motors allowed the building of five thousand GTO's. Dealers helped Pontiac out with this decision due to the fact that the secret of the GTO leaked and dealers started ordering them before they were ever put into production. There were thirty two thousand GTO's sold in the first year but only five thousand were "true" GTO's due to the compromise between Pontiac and General Motors; the rest were ordered as Temptest's with many high performance options. (Nichols 64) In 1969 Pontiac offered the "Judge" option on the GTO, which added a rear spoiler and a special paint scheme, but in 1970 some real performance upgrades took place.

Pontiac gave the stock GTO a 400 cubic inch small block engine and offered an option of a 455 cubic inch big block engine. (Hirsch 194) Ford replied to the GTO with the Mustang in 1964. The Mustang, introduced in April 1964, was built on the compact Falcon's platform and came with a Falcon suspension -- soft springs and four-wheel drum brakes. The 1964 1/2 was actually considered a 1965 by Ford, but many people now use the terms to distinguish between the engine changes made by Ford after August 1964.

The first generation of Mustang ran from 1964 to 1966. That generation sold 1,293,650 units. The Mustang could be ordered any way the owner wanted it from an economical six-cylinder engine to the high performance 289 cubic inch V 8. (Hirsch 181) The Mustang was reasonably priced at $2400 and easily serviced. (Hirsch 182) In 1965 Ford joined forces with Shelby and created the Shelby Mustang, which was equipped with a 428 cubic inch big block engine. It was made because of the success of the Cobra Mustang and to rival the Pontiac Trans-Am 400 Ram-Air.

(Nichols 92) 1967 saw the Mustang get a slight style change and a little bigger too. This dropped the sales though. In 1970 Ford unveiled the third generation of Mustang, which appeared bigger and beefier without much more interior room or truck space. This third generation Mustang only ran for four years though and in 1974, the Mustang was completely restyled. (Hirsch 182) The introduction of the Mustang launched a war between Chevrolet and Ford. Chevrolet needed a muscle car to counter the Mustang and GTO.

Chevrolet's answer came in 1967 with the Camaro. Camaro was the mean daddy of the Chevrolet "bad bowtie era". It came with a number of options and engines from the economical high output V 6 to the high performance 396 cubic inch big block engine. (Hirsch 183) Although the standard V 8 Camaro with the 350 cubic inch engine thrashed any and all Mustangs, Chevrolet could not stop the innovation of the Camaro. The Z-28 option was a special high performance Camaro with a 302 cubic inch V 8.

The option was technically called RPO Z-28 but the "RPO" part was left in the technical books. The Z-28 was produced to make the Camaro eligible to compete in the Trans-Am series of races. Trans-Am only allowed the V 8's to be a maximum of 305 cubic inches as Chevrolet produced the 302. The 302 was a 327 block with a four inch bore and a 283 crankshaft with a three inch stroke.

A Z-28 could go from zero to sixty miles per hour in 7.4 seconds and cover the quarter mile in 14.9 seconds at a speed of one hundred, one miles per hour, and had a speed of one hundred and thirty three miles per hour. The only downfall to the Z-28 was the price tag, at $3,700, which was rather expensive at the time. The Camaro Super Sport, also known as the SS, was aimed at the street and drag strip. It had a high performance 350 cubic inch engine. While the Z-28 performed well it idled like a boat and had a slight roar, buyers didn't like that. The SS had a little more manners than the Z-28 but was still able to perform.

It could go form zero to sixty in 7.8 seconds, cover the quarter mile in 15.8 seconds, and top out at 120 miles per hour. (Hirsch 185) Along with Chevrolet, Pontiac wanted a Mustang Basher too. After many prototypes, Pontiac developed a Camaro clone. They called it the Firebird.

The Firebird prototype impressed Chevrolet but I did not impress Pontiac so Firebird got bigger tires and wheels and lowered suspension. Those and some minor appearance alterations Pontiac unveiled the Firebird. The firebird was slightly more expensive than the Mustang and Camaro; it also had an optional 400 cubic inch small block engine. That 400 small block was not the same engine as the GTO option offered. It was a governed model of the GTO's that could be de-constricted with a screwdriver and less than a minute.

In 1968 Pontiac debuted the Firebird 400 High Output which had a high performance 400 small block engine and a three speed transmission. Firebird sold well although it was an expensive muscle car but was more luxurious than the Camaro. Road testers for magazines liked the Firebird, which also helped sales. (Nichols 72) Because of the success of the Firebird, Pontiac developed the Firebird Trans-Am in 1969. The Trans-Am was not really a car but an option package for Firebird.

It was a cosmetic package Firebird 400 with a few mechanical changes. The Trans-Am package consisted of: a Ram-Air engine, front disc brakes, variable ratio steering packages, limited slip rear end, Trans-Am hood, front air dam, rear wing, and air extractors for the fenders. There were only six hundred and eighty nine Trans-Ams made in the first year with only eight of them being convertibles. The 1969 Trans-Am was the first muscle car to conquer ride-handling problems. Because of the success of the 1969 Trans-Am a race model 303 cubic inch tunnel-port engine was under development but never was produced in mass. There were only 25 of them made so Trans-Am used the Chevy 302 cubic inch engine to race.

(Nichols 94) Firebird released another Firebird 400 called the Firebird 400 Ram Air; it had four-bolt mains, forged aluminum pistons, heavy-duty rocker arms, an aluminum intake manifold, and a wild camshaft. It was governed but could be de-governed with a screwdriver. In 1968 Firebirds had a Ram Air 400 High Output and in 1969 the Firebird became longer and wider in the rear. In 1969 Firebird and Camaro also took a one-piece Lexan front hood, which was cheaper than the Corvettes Endura hood. Firebird sold well with 50,000 within its first ten weeks of its launch but the sales topped 113,000 in the first year. Those figures did not compare to the Camaro's 200,000 plus sales.

(Nichols 72) Two cars of the Muscle Car Era were "one hit wonders". The Dodge Daytona Charger and the Plymouth Road Runner Superbird were only produced for one year. The Dodge Daytona Charger was produced in 1969 and was equipped with a four hundred and twenty five horsepower 426 cubic inch Hemi which came to be known as the "Orange Monster" because it only came from the factory in orange. The car was very aerodynamic and sold for $8,000. The Plymouth Road Runner Superbird was produced in 1970.

It was also equipped with the "Orange Monster". This car was very aerodynamic but the Dodge Daytona Challenger had twenty percent better airflow over the body. (Nichols 102) Ancient Rome has vanished and the horse driven racers have too. NASCAR and the NHRA are thriving more that ever and although the Muscle Car Era is over, it has left its mark. Some think that these so-called high performance imports are the muscle cars of today but they will never reach the capabilities of the early muscle cars. Muscle cars are all, "legends and legends never die (Morrow) " as Lavern Morrow said.

Do you conclude anything from the history presented to today's vehicles?

Bibliography

History". NASCAR. August 20, 2003 web Bakerville, Gray.
Hot Rod". Primedia Magazines, Inc. August 20, 2003 web Hirsch, Jay.
Great American Dream Machines: Classic Cars of the 50's and 60's. New York: Macmillan; London: Collier Macmillan, 1985 LaVern, Morrow.
Personal interview. 27 Sept. 2003.
Nichols, Richard. American Sportscars: A Survey of the Classic Marques. New York: Gallery Books, 1988.
48-102 Phillips, David. American Motorsports. United Kingdom: Carlton, 1997 Citations 1.
Bakerville, Gray. August 20, 2003 (web) 2.
Phillips, David. American Motorsports. United Kingdom: Carlton, 1997 pg.
27 3. Reference 2, pg. 28 4. Reference 2, pg. 82 5. Reference 2, pg. 102,105 6. Nichols, Richard. New York: Gallery Books, 1988.
48-102 pg. 48 7. Reference 6, pg. 64 8. Hirsch, Jay. New York: Macmillan; London: Collier Macmillan, 1985 pg.
192 9. Reference 8, pg. 194 10. Reference 8, pg. 181 11. Reference 8, pg. 182 12. Reference 6, pg. 92 13. Reference 8, pg. 182 14. Reference 8, pg. 183 15. Reference 8, pg. 185 16. Reference 6, pg. 72 17. Reference 6, pg. 94 18. Reference 6, pg. 72 19. Reference 6, pg. 102 20. LaVern, Morrow. Personal interview. 27 Sept. 2003.