The People Of NASCAR: Harold Brasington
Friday, October 6th, 2006 11:34am EDT
By Frank Morrison, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
[thumb:387:l:s=1:l=x]Harold Brasington went to his first auto race in 1925 at the age of 14. The teenager marveled at the speeds that were reached on the 1 1/4 mile oval. That race set him on fire, and he was determined to do something in the field of auto racing. That decision sealed the fate for creating a legend.
Harold, as a young farmer in South Carolina, would make the trek to see the Indy 500 when he could find the time. Amazed at the crowd of people who would pay to see the cars run on the large track at Indy, he became determined to bring that crowd to South Carolina.
Harold didn’t own the amount of land that was needed to build a track of that magnitude, but he knew men who did. J. Sherman Ramsey owned a large trek of land in Darlington just off US highway 151. The two men struck a deal to take a chance on this with a hand shake.
Harold wanted to build a 1 1/4 mile oval that could race stock, motorcycles, and open wheeled cars. With support from Ramsey and two local businessmen the construction started in late 1949. Brasington wanted the first race to be a 500 mile stock race.
Brasington discussed his plans with Bill France at the race in Hillsboro about staging a 500 mile stock car race at his track. France was worried that stock cars wouldn’t last for 500 miles. If the stock cars did run in a 500 mile race and none of them finished it would ruin stock car racing. After France missed the meeting to discuss details with Brasington, he felt France had no interest in the race.
Brasington next went to the Central States Racing Association. Norman Witte went to Darlington to check out the facility, and decided to sanction the race. For advertising purposes, Bob Smith dubbed the race the “Southern 500″.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view, the CSRA could not garner the interest in the race. Six months into the advertising for the race they had half of the tickets sold but only 5 entries. Brasington and Bob Colvin went to see Bill France again to see if he would co-sanction the race. Bill France decided to take a chance and co-sanction the race.
When NACAR jumped aboard the entries came in so quick the track team couldn’t keep up with them. In August when the practices began, there were 80 cars at the track.
And as they say, the rest is history.
There you have it. The story of Harold Brasington, and the legendary Southern 500.
See Y’all Next Week!
Filed Under: Features, Frank Morrison, Guest Authors, Nascar, The People Of Nascar
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