Speed on the Beach

Just as the tide ebbed, the first invading wave of cars whisked along the rim of the sand. Loudspeakers blatted. Whistles skirled. The racket of racing engines woke the town. For the next two weeks the annual speed trials of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing turned Daytona Beach, Fla. into a motorized madhouse.*

No one seemed to mind. The U.S. public has come to worship high-performance cars, and here were the latest sleek and high-powered family autos performing at their rarely possible, full-throttle best. For the first time since 1936, when stock car racing began at Daytona, last week's speed trials seemed like the high old times of the early '20s, when every auto factory sponsored a racing stable. Here once more were big names of auto racing--Mauri

Rose, Pete de Paolo, Lou Moore--not driving, but riding herd on an anxious manufacturer's best mechanics, coaching teams of professional drivers. Each was out to prove that the car he was handling was the nimblest and/or fastest on the road (leaving it to the auto industry's pitchmen to explain that added speed somehow means added safety).

Strictly Stock. During the cutthroat N.A.S.C.A.R. competition, drivers and mechanics tried every trick in the book. Each car was supposed to be strictly a stock model, no different than those in the dealers' showrooms. Officials worked over time, tearing down winning cars in every time trial, probing and prying, measuring and checking to see that they had not been doctored in violation of the rules. In the "Flying Mile"* for passenger cars, for instance, officials had to disqualify four of Mauri Rose's fastest Chevvies because their fan belts just happened to break loose, a quadruple coincidence that allowed the cars to make their runs without wasting the fraction of power used to turn radiator fans and generators.

Unaided by such mechanical coincidences, a bright red 1956 Chrysler 300-6, owned by Outboard Motor Manufacturer Carl Kiekhaefer and driven by last year's N.A.S.C.A.R. Champion Tim Flock, turned in the fastest flying mile of the unlimited displacement (over 350 cu. in.) class: 139.373 m.p.h. Chryslers of the same model ran the mile at least 10 m.p.h. slower. To get such spectacular performance out of his big (340 h.p.) car, Kiekhaefer kept his highly trained mechanics working for weeks at tuning the engine, test-driving the car, turning the tires down on a tire lathe until they were as bald as racing rubber, and perfectly balanced. All Flock had to do to beat his less elaborately prepared competitors was push the accelerator to the floorboard and steer.

Tuned Up, Not Tricked Up. Spectators were far more impressed by the achievement of Dodge's Chief Test Driver Danny Eames, 37. With only one mechanic to help him, and working only with tools and spare parts available in a regular Daytona Dodge agency, Danny prepared his D-500-1 himself. The result was truly a stock car, tuned for the last ounce of performance, but not tricked up. A man could buy the duplicate anywhere Dodges are sold. When Danny skittered into the speed trap, his deep-treaded stockroom tires bounced over the ridged wet sand at an average speed of 130.577 m.p.h. His nearest competitor in the class: a 1956 Mercury, clocked at 124.503 m.p.h.

Next day, in acceleration tests (a one-mile run from a standing start), Danny brought his 260-h.p. Dodge home in front of every passenger car on the beach--including the more powerful Chryslers. Careful not to spin his wheels, Danny got off to a fast start, shifted gears as soon as his motor whined up to maximum torque, and finished with an average speed of 81.786 m.p.h. Behind him was Daytona's Brewster Shaw, in a Chrysler 300-6, with 81.762 m.p.h., and Ohio's Ned Decker, in a 1956 Chevrolet, with 81.392 m.p.h.

Strange Cargo. The attempts at corner-cutting kept the meet lively. Just before his car was impounded for mechanical inspection, the driver of a Studebaker Golden Hawk put his car in gear and took off for home, preferring to quit rather than watch the officials detect his violation. "I'm glad you beat me," a Buick driver told Eames. "I'd never have passed inspection." Mauri Rose brought his Corvettes to the line for their acceleration tests, had no comment at all when inspectors discovered Driver John Fitch lugging an illegal cargo in his trunk compartment: a 300-lb. engine block that would have weighted his rear end nicely for better traction in the sand.

Minus the helping weight, Fitch in his Corvette still turned 86.872 m.p.h., finished third in the U.S. production sports-car class, behind California's Chuck Daigh, who clocked 88.779 m.p.h. in a new Ford Thunderbird (the Corvette's arch-rival in the young U.S. sports-car field), and Chicago's William Norkett, who averaged 87.869 m.p.h. in another Thunderbird. Earlier, in the flying mile for production sports cars, Fitch's Corvette, its windshield removed, finished first with 145.543 m.p.h. The nearest Thunderbird clocked 134.404 m.p.h.

Other prizewinning performances:

P: Driving a hopped-up Corvette with a streamline fin mounted behind the cockpit, Chevrolet Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov won the U.S. modified sports-car division with 147.300 m.p.h.

P: California's Vern Haule drove a prototype Mercury at 147.269 m.p.h. New York's Phil Walters drove a prototype Plymouth Fury at 136.415 m.p.h.

* Literally as well as figuratively. Caught up in the excitement, some teen-agers started their own "drag races" on city streets, refused to quit when cops ordered them off the roads, dispersed the police with a barrage of stones. The gang grew into a riot-size (3,000) mob, and National Guard troops were called out to restore peace to Daytona Beach. Score: 33 in jail and 15 injured, none seriously.

* Which allowed entrants a two-mile run to pick up speed before entering a one-mile trap where speed is measured electronically.

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