(Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of a five-part
RacinToday series on the earliest days of stock car racing.)
If
the initial stock car racing epidemic had a specific carrier in the
1930s, it was the prototypical promoter. This was the type who usually
wore a suit jacket and a fedora to signify success at the risky task of
selling tickets in rented facilities and recognizing the latest thing –
from wing walking to air races, quarter midget racing for smaller
Indy-type cars and motorcycle racing.
When stock car racing first
came along, in the eyes of many promoters it was just another cheap
thrill show for a gullible public. Some promoters saw bigger things in
it such as Bill France, who studiously avoided suit jackets and
eventually began to wear a cap instead of a fedora after taking over
promotion of races on the Beach & Road Course in Daytona in 1938
