First NASCAR Road Race

[ancrdave]

Up until last week, only two photos of NASCAR's first race on a true road course... at the Linden, NJ Airport in 1954... were thought to exist... We have been housing a number of photos and negatives here at the ISC Archives that were property of the late NASCAR photographer T. Taylor Warren and his daughter has given us permission to begin using them as we wish... So, guess what we found... a bunch of photos from this race....
Not only was it the first NASCAR GN (Cup) race on an actual road course (The Daytona Beach and Road Course was considered a "road course" race for some odd reason even though it was more like Martinsville on steroids) but it was the second race to allow foreign makes of cars to compete against the full-size NASCAR sedans... There were 43 cars in the race, 22 NASCAR sedans and 21 sports cars including 13 Jaguars, 5 MGs, and one each Austin Healey, Porsche and Morgan... Al Keller won the race in a Jaguar making it the first time a foreign car make won a NASCAR Cup race. Would not happen again until Kyle Busch won with a Toyota at Atlanta in 2008... The only difference is Keller's Jag was a real car while Kyle's Camry was nothing close to what you find in the showroom... but still a neat piece of history...

[jacko241]

That is really cool, Dave. Thanks for sharing!

[Beach Bum]

Great pics,for sure. I'm thinking those Jags had a big advantage on a road course,especially with their disc brakes.

[egspeedway]

Up until last week, only two photos of NASCAR's first race on a true road course... at the Linden, NJ Airport in 1954... were thought to exist... We have been housing a number of photos and negatives here at the ISC Archives that were property of the late NASCAR photographer T. Taylor Warren and his daughter has given us permission to begin using them as we wish... So, guess what we found... a bunch of photos from this race....
Not only was it the first NASCAR GN (Cup) race on an actual road course (The Daytona Beach and Road Course was considered a "road course" race for some odd reason even though it was more like Martinsville on steroids) but it was the second race to allow foreign makes of cars to compete against the full-size NASCAR sedans... There were 43 cars in the race, 22 NASCAR sedans and 21 sports cars including 13 Jaguars, 5 MGs, and one each Austin Healey, Porsche and Morgan... Al Keller won the race in a Jaguar making it the first time a foreign car make won a NASCAR Cup race. Would not happen again until Kyle Busch won with a Toyota at Atlanta in 2008... The only difference is Keller's Jag was a real car while Kyle's Camry was nothing close to what you find in the showroom... but still a neat piece of history...

Kellers car was owned by Paul Whiteman a long time supporter of Nascar. I would be curious to see what kind of photos are available of the road race held at TiCo airport in Titusville. As I recall it was swept by Pete DePalos Ford factory team.

[ancrdave]

Keller's car was not actually owned by Paul Whiteman, he was just listed as the owner... The car was actually owned by Ed Otto, promoter of the race... he listed Whiteman to avoid conflict of interest... You may remember that Otto promoted some of the early World series events at New Smyrna Speedway...

[BVS40FL]

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That ain't right .

[davem]

shoulda bought a buick! rides better, lasts longer, GETS BETTER MILEAGE, costs less to fix.