Your Auto Racing Information Site!
The Beginning
Auto racing owes it's start to horse breeders, farmers, cowboys, and shady gamblers from the early to mid 1800's. Horse racing was always a big sport out West when it was still wild. It was always my horse is faster and stronger than yours, sometimes a special horse who won most all of the races it was in was branded with the title of double horse, hence the current term of measurement, horse power. Back then there was nothing really organized about it. A good race would start between two cowboys who were bragging about their steeds, usually over a few belts from an old whisky bottle. One cowboy would call another one out to prove his brag. The old township Sheriff or Marshal would clear the streets and the race was on. First one to the finish line, which as a line drawn in the dirt with a stick, wins. In most western towns, it was an event to be seen. Usually after the race, bids for purchasing the winning horse would be left on the bar at the saloon for the winning cowboy who then had to decide if he was willing to sell the horse or not.
That's how it all started. As these impromptu races became more popular, someone noticed that everything in town would come to a standstill when these races started. Chea's Pass, Wyoming (just outside of present day Buford, Wyoming) was the first township to really take notice. They were one of the last forts where good horse flesh could be bought or traded before the crossing the Great Divide Mountain Range. In 1872 the town's proprietors got together to try to settle a problem they were having with cattle auctions, sales wagons, circus acts, and all kinds of independent businesses being held right in the roadway between their legitimate businesses. The noise, smell, and undesirable people these events brought had to be controlled and more important, moved to a better location. They decided to build an arena on the outskirts of town. This area became known as the Fair Grounds because the term Fair Ground comes from the fact that the arena was to be built on unclaimed or fair ground, meaning no one owned it.
Chea's Pass township got together and came up with a plan. They decided that in order to keep their streets from becoming cluttered with animals, they were going to have to build a facility that would also house those animals. This is where the oval or circle fence came into play. The reason the fence was build in a round pattern was thought to be because people who owned the adjacent property didn't want the animals too close to their property lines. Once the arena was constructed they decided that if they were going to have cattle auctions there, they might as well build something to accommodate the buyers and traders who would be attending, so up went the first known western stadium style seating. Oh, it was nothing fancy, just wooden planks laid out on supports for folks to sit on. Now that horse racing was outlawed in town, they would come out to the fair grounds and race around the outside of the fence containing the cattle. They did this so that they could be seen from the Grand Stands, as it were.
When there was a sale or an impromptu race from the bar, everyone would drop what they were doing and go to the fair grounds to watch the event. This and the fact that the local saloon was losing glasses because they would all wind up at the arena, prompted the saloon owner to move his business out to the fair grounds in order to serve drinks to their patrons during events, which were getting more and more frequent. As the popularity grew, other business owners took notice. In 1874, the only black smith in Chea's Pass opened another location out at the fair grounds. The hotel owner built another building on the grounds with seven rooms to rent. This idea was growing and other townships began planning and building their own arenas. It was spreading all over the west.
One thing the builders of Chea's Pass didn't take into consideration was the riders who were racing around the outside of the oval or circle who would lose their horse in the rare event they were thrown during a race. The horse would run away if it had no rider, so when other townships built theirs, they incorporated a circle within a circle and these circles were built just for the horse racing. The term track came from the enclosed fencing making the rider/racer feel as though he was on a railroad track. In 1877, Chea's Pass built the outer circle and became known as the Wyoming Territory Horse Racing Arena. One of the first buildings of the site still stands today next to a multimillion dollar horse racing training facility and stable.
As word spread about the increasing crowds attending these events, other towns took to building simular facilities all over the settled territories, even back east. Horse racing spread like wild fire! Associations, Cups, and National Championships were formed. Horse racing was considered the number one spectator sport back in those days.
With the invention of the automobile in the late 1800's, horses took a back seat to the new automobile. Some of the first cars were capable of maintaining speeds of up to 14 miles per hour. Later, as cars became faster, the old "Mine is faster and more powerful than yours" came back once again. Now there were cars racing the streets in the early 1900's. There were no rules or even understandings for operating these cars on the roads and streets designed for horses. It became a problem. This invention of the horseless carrage also put a damper on the horse racing fad that was fading fast. Again, the people of Chea's Pass, Wyoming set the standards. They came up with the gentleman's agreement for operating cars on the streets and outlawed any racing except on the old fair grounds in the circle within a circle. This is where auto racing really started. In 1922, Chea's Pass organized and hosted the first ever invitational automobile race. There were only eight entries and only three finished. Danal Previs won and was awarded $5 in drinks at the track saloon. There were reportedley about 150 spectators at the 12 lap event. This event set the presidence for promoters all over America.
Down South, during the 1920's and 30's, tracks were being constructed specifically for auto racing. If you owned property and could clear out a patch of ground to cut a circle in, you had a race track. There were literally hundreds of them in operation at the time. If a race was promoted, the people would come. The sport grew even more when automobile manufacturers began to develop cars built for handling and speed. People were racing the cars they drove back and forth to work and church. Even workers who didn't have cars but drove as part of their jobs got in on the act. They would race the bosses trucks.
One of the main contributors to the promotion of racing was a byproduct of an Illegal act. Illegal homemade wiskey runners known as bootleggers were tearing up the dirt roads and logging trails hauling their loads from the stills to the customers while trying to outrun law enforcement agencies. This situation produced drivers who possessed new skills as well as cars that were modified to haul the heavy loads at higher speeds. Mechanics were developing ways to make their old cars run faster and faster in order to stay ahead of the police because if the police were going to charge a bootlegger, they had to have evidence. If the evidence was moving, they couldn't get it or the driver. The Saturday night races were on. Bootleggers like Junior Johnson got his start on the backroads of the deep South, running moonshine. He became one of the fathers of NASCAR Racing. Lee Petty, Cail Yarbrough, Buddy Baker, and Red Farmer got their start running the night shift white lightening express on the back roads of the south.
Auto racing was a great spectator sport, even back then. Promoters realized the potential of races and began to promote the Saturday night races at the local track, be it a cow pasture or an old lake bed or whatever. People came to watch thier favorite drivers. Back in 1956 at the Montgomery International Motor Speedway in Montgomery Alabama, the first uniformed pit crew made it's appearance. A little known driver was about to lose everything he owned. He had loans on his house and his Mother's house at the local bank. He had used the money from the loans to keep his racing dream alive. When he couldn't pay the loan back, the bank started to repossess everything he owned, including his race car. This called for a desprite measure, so this guy went to a local business owner and proposed a deal. If the local business owner would help him out, he'd make sure that everyone he knew at the tracks where he raced was aware of his business. A sponsorship deal was made. The next week, all the members of Bobby Allison's crew came to the track wearing like yellow and red bowling shirts that proudly displayed his only sponsor of the time, Lee's Drug Store. The next week the car was repainted and Lee's name and address were proudly placed on the hood of the car. He and his team put Lee's on the map. Lee's Drugs are now located all over the south. This event set a presidence for future teams and owners and was the start of the current day multimillion dollar sponsorship deals. Racing has come a long way since then.
Today, auto racing, in whatever format, draws the largest spectator base in sports. Advertisements and sponsorships dominate everything. Rules and guidelines have been set to make it as fair as is possible and there are billions of dollars spent on promotions. It is estimated that there are over 288 million fans dedicated to thier sport. World wide, there is a race somewhere nearly every day. From it's humble beginnings as a horse race in the street to the Indianapolis 500 at the brick yards, this sport has grown more than any government agency or any other organized sport. Sex is about the only competition auto racing has left!
James H. Jones Jr., A2Z Auto Racing ©2004
