King of the Stocks

Daytona Beach, Fla., already had a tradition of speed when a onetime Washington, D.C., garage mechanic named William Henry Getty France settled there in 1934 and opened a gas station. In 1903, Alexander Winton whistled across the hard sandy beach in a Bullet at 68.198 m.p.h. to set Daytona's first land speed record--and started a sequence that culminated in Sir Malcolm Campbell's 276.816-m.p.h. run in his Bluebird in 1935.

The next year the city sponsored its first stock-car race. It was a financial flop. But one of the drivers was Bill France; after finishing fifth, he decided to concentrate on promoting races. By last week, France had made Daytona the capital of stock-car racing, his Daytona International Speedway was the sport's No. 1 emporium and he himself was indisputably king of the stocks.

Not in a Showroom. In the early days, stock-car racing was pretty much catch as catch can: tracks were haphazardly laid out; there were no safety standards for the cars. The need for regulation was recognized by France, whose early operations were so successful that he was soon branching out, staging races in Georgia and the Carolinas. In 1947, he and some friends formed the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing; France was elected president, and there he has remained. The first thing NASCAR did was decree that tracks were to have well-maintained roadways and fire-fighting equipment always on hand. Cars had to be equipped with rollbars; drivers had to wear shoulder harnesses. And stock cars had to be just that.

A huge bear of a man (6 ft. 4 in., 220 lbs.), France has made his share of enemies. He antagonized General Motors in 1957 by banning the fuel-injection system used in racing models of the Corvette, drove Chrysler temporarily out of racing in 1965 by banning its "hemi-head" engine; neither, he decreed, qualified as "stock" because ordinary street drivers could not buy them. "France made stock-car racing," a Chrysler official groused. "Now he'll kill it."

Hardly. In 1949, NASCAR sanctioned 87 races on 25 tracks around the U.S.; last year it sanctioned 1,027 races on 85 tracks around the world. Attendance has grown from a few hundred thousand fans to an estimated 12 million, and instead of gasoline money, drivers now compete for $3,500,000 in prizes. New tracks have sprung up all over the country--Charlotte, N.C., Atlanta, Riverside, Calif. But the showplace is still Bill France's own Daytona International Speedway.

Two in One. Built in 1958, the $3,500,000 Speedway is really two tracks: a two-mile road course for sports cars and the stock-car "trioval"--a roughly triangular, 2 1/2-mile circuit with two high-speed turns banked at 31DEG and a third turn banked at 18DEG. The banking, the perfectly smooth asphalt paving, plus the track's unusual width --three cars can race abreast--make it the fastest race track in the world. In qualifying trials for last week's tenth annual Daytona 500, the top 13 qualifiers ran the course at more than 180 m.p.h.

On race day, 94,800 fans--the biggest sports crowd in Florida history--jammed into the Speedway, and what they saw left them limp. The yellow caution light went on for accidents eleven times. The lead changed hands no fewer than 22 times--until, just ten miles from the end, South Carolina's Cale Yarborough, 28, edged into the lead in his 1968 Mercury. He crossed the finish line with an average speed of 143.251 m.p.h. And there was Bill France, handing Yarborough the trophy that went with his winner's check of $47,250.

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