From there, the Chesapeake, VA driver went on to post a stellar career competing in 906 Cup events through the 2007 season when he posted 31 starts for Robert Yates Racing. In all, Rudd won 23 times including his first victory in 1983 at Riverside wheeling a Richard Childress Chevy to the triumph. Rudd also posted 194 top-five and 374 top-10 finishes in his career.

In addition to Champion, Yates and Childress rides, Rudd also drove for Digard Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, Kenny Bernstein and his own Ricky Rudd Motorsports team in his 32 year NASCAR career.

Here, Rudd is shown in this Close Finishes photo piloting the No. 15 Bud Moore Motorcraft in 1987 at Bristol.

To see more great Close Finishes Featured Photos, please click on the following link -

http://www.closefinishes.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000005/000567.htm

Shown here with his No. 89 NASCAR Sportsman Division entry at Fredericksburg (VA) Speedway in 1960, Scott was a terror of the Mid-Atlantic short track ranks from 1947 through 1960. Among his accomplishment were winning 22 feature events en route to the 1959 Virginia State Sportsman Championship and the Southside Speedway (Richmond, VA)   season title that same year.

Scott made his NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) debut in 1961 at Spartanburg (SC) Speedway wheeling a Chevrolet to a 17 ^th -place finish. On December 1,1963, Scott won his first and only NASCAR Grand National race coming home first in a 200-lap event on the old Speedway Park half-mile dirt oval in Jacksonville, FL. To date, the win remains the only triumph for an African-American in NASCAR’s top division.

Despite fielding an underfunded operation, Scott was able to finish in the top-10 in NASCAR Grand National points from 1966-1969, his best point’s effort a sixth in 1966. In all, Scott would compete in 495 Grand National/Winston Cup events posting 147 top-10 finishes. To date, only five other African-Americans have competed in NASCAR’s Cup division totaling just nine starts between them.

Scott’s driving career came to an end – running only one race afterward - when he was involved in a violent accident in the 1973 Winston 500 atTalladega, AL.

Scott passed away on December 23,1990.

This photo was taken by Bob Williams photo and is part of the Larry Jendras, Jr. collection. It was made available to Close Finishes by Jack Walker and Carolina Race Place ( www.raceplace.zoomshare.com )

Long before the Wood Brothers were fielding dominating Fords and Mercurys in the 1960’s and 1970’s for drivers like Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Neil Bonnett, they were running NASCAR Sportsman coupes with Glen Wood doing the driving.

In this 1951 Clyde Mangum photo, Wood’s No. 16 leads a full field past a packed house into the first turn at the quarter-mile Draper Speedway near Eden, NC.

Wood and his brother, Leonard, would eventually make their NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) debut in 1953 finishing 30 ^th at Martinsville Speedway. The car was a Lincoln and sported the now famous No. 21 family number.

In all, Glen Wood would compete in 62 Grand National events through the 1964 season. His lone victory came in 1963 at Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, NC.

Heading into the Brickyard 400 next week, the Wood Brothers have competed in a staggering 1,319 NASCAR Cup events winning 97 times. They have notched 118 poles and 517 top-10 finishes.

Photo courtesy of Jack Walker and Carolina Race Place ( www.raceplace.zoomshare.com ).

Enjoy, and as always, thanks for looking. 

Roberts made his NASCAR ‘big car’ debut in 1950 wheeling a Jim Davis owned Hudson in the season-opening 200 miler on the Daytona Beach road course. Later that year – in just his third start – Roberts won at Hillsboro (NC) Speedway steering his 1949 Oldsmobile to a victory of Curtis Turner, Dick Linder, Bill Rexford and Clyde Minter.

In all, Roberts would win 33 NASCAR Strictly Stock/Grand National (now Sprint Cup) races in his career before he tragically died in an accident at Charlotte Motor Speedway (now Lowes) on July 2, 1964.

Earnhardt eventually made his way to the then NASCAR Grand National Series (now Sprint Cup) making his debut at Hickory Speedway in 1956. He qualified first and finished second in the No. 22 Ford owned by Peter DePaolo. In all, the elder Earnhardt would compete in 51 Grand National races between 1956 and 1964 never winning a race.

Earnhardt died on September 26, 1973.

Here, Earnhardt is shown in the number 8JR Sportsman car - a 1940 Ford Coupe - in the middle 1950’s. He also campaigned several other cars and numbers during the period including 6, 8 and Z-1 during the period.

This image is from the Brian Simpson collection and was made available to Close Finishes courtesy of Jack Walker and Carolina Race Place ( www.raceplace.zoomshare.com ).

While most people associate Petty with his famed No. 43 Plymouth, ‘the King’ campaigned several different numbers and model vehicles in his 1,184 career NASCAR starts.

In this first Jack Walker photo, Petty is shown with a No. 44 Plymouth – a 1960 model – prior to posting a second-place finish in the April 21, 1962 Grand National event at Rambi Raceway in Myrtle Beach.

The second image – also a Jack Walker shot – shows Petty’s 1963 Plymouth, this one No. 41, before an event at Rambi that same year. Petty won the 12 ^th of 123 career poles at this race, but finished 15 ^th after he crashed out of the event on Lap 60.

In all, Petty scored 200 wins, 555 top-five and 712 top-10 in his driving career which ended in the final race of the 1992 season at Atlanta.

More vintage Jack Walker photos can be viewed Carolina Race Place ( www.raceplace.zoomshare.com ).

Anyway, a quick scan and here it is – a classic Daytona International Speedway decal from the early 1960’s. Decals and stickers are a great, inexpensive way to start a young person collecting racing memorabilia. We got this one for our son Sam out of a bin at The Milwaukee Mile for 10 cents in the middle 1980’s.

We have no idea what it is worth – or even if we would sell it. Either way, its way cool and a great example of the kind of promotional items racing organizations pumped out more than 40 years ago.

To see more vintage items and photos, please click on the following Close Finishes link –

  http://www.closefinishes.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000005/000567.htm

Also, don’t forget to check out the more than 30 photo galleries of all kinds of race cars and hot rods in the Close Finishes Photo Gallery. Just click on the following link, open any gallery, and click on the photo to enlarge.

http://www.closefinishes.com/photog/index.php

As always, thanks for supporting Close Finishes. Have a great weekend.

That said, here’s a beauty of Buddy and his 1958 Chevy two-door poster in 1959 at the old Nashville Fairgrounds track.

The photo, part of the Tony Morton collection and made available to us by Carolina Race Place, shows Baker before his 10 ^th career NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) start.

On this day, Buddy completed just 10 laps in his No. 89 Chevy – which was first built for and raced on the beach at Daytona in 1958 by the legendary Banjo Mathews - before an engine failure relegated him to a 30 ^th -place finish.

Buddy had better luck throughout the rest of his career winning 19 times in 699 Cup starts. The likeable Charlotte, NC native notched 202 Top-5 and 311 Top-10 finishes in his 33-year NASCAR driving career. His first win came in the 1967 National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (now Lowes) and his final triumph was behind the wheel of the famed Wood Brothers entry in the 1983 Firecracker 400 at Daytona.

Baker graduated to the broadcast booth after his driving career ended in 1992. Since then, he has also tutored numerous young drivers and given back to the sport in more ways than can be counted.

While Baker’s best finish in the Cup title chase was a fifth in 1977, he is truly one of the sport’s greatest champions for his contributions off the track. One of the all-time good guys to ever grace the garage area, Baker is 67 years old.

To view more images in the Close Finishes Feature Photo Gallery, please click on the following link - 

http://www.closefinishes.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000005/000567.htm

The Chemung, NY native made his NASCAR debut that year starting 16 ^th and finishing 29 ^th in the Daytona 500. Over the next 25 years, Bodine would make 570 Cup starts winning 18 times (100 Top-5's, 190 Top-10 finishes).

Bodine, pictured here in the No. 15 Bud Moore Ford at Bristol in a 1992 Close Finishes photo, earned his first NASCAR victory – and the first win ever for Hendrick Motorsports – in 1984 in the Sovran Bank 500 at Martinsville Speedway. Bodine’s biggest win came while driving for Hendrick when he captured the 1986 Daytona 500.

Bodine, who survived one of the worst wrecks in the history of NASCAR in the inaugural Craftsman Truck Series race at Daytona in 2000, made his last appearance in a Cup car at Dover in 2004.

One of the premiere NASCAR Winston Racing Series tracks from the 1970’s through the 1990’s, the tight Rockford oval hosted some of the greatest short track racing in the country at the time. It still does.

In the forefront of the Rockford galaxy of stars was the late Joe Shear. Shear captured his first major title at Rockford in 1972 winning the prestigious National Short Track Championships. He repeated the title seven times.

Shear was also a standout in the ARTGO Challenge Series winning the 1986 and 1989 championships. In the photo above, Shear (36) battles a legend of equal billing – Dick Trickle (99) – in the Rockford Spring Opener in an early 1990’s event. Shear went on to win the race and get his picture taken in Victory Lane.

Close Finishes photos.  

There are thousands of drivers who have taken their turn at the wheel of a NASCAR racer since the inception of the division in 1948. Many lived to tell tales of how they once raced on the great speedways including the greatest of all in the 1960’s – Daytona International Speedway.

One such racer was Reb Wickersham from Longboat Key, FL. Wickersham competed in 41 NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) events from 1960 through 1965. Amazingly, 14 of those starts came at Daytona. His best finish was an eighth in the 1965 Firecracker 400 – also his last appearance at the track.

Here’s Wickersham prior to the 1960 Firecracker 250 with his 1960 Olds. He started 29 ^th and finished 23 ^rd .

This photo courtesy of Carolina Race Place and www.raceplace.zoomshare.com .

Here’s the No. 73 Chevy of Johnny Beauchamp after he and Lee Petty went out of the ballpark during a qualifying race for the 1961 Daytona 500. The wreck ended the career of Beauchamp while Petty was all but through competing in only eight races afterward retiring for good in 1964.

Here’s a shot from the 1960 Daytona 500 – Fins a flyin,’ here’s Bill Lutz( 44), David Pearson (67), Whitey Gerkin (63), and Larry Frank( 76) blazing their way through the banking at DIS.

Gerkin was the top finisher of this group bringing his Frank Skinner owned 1959 Pontiac home in the 17 ^th position. Junior Johnson won the event over Bobby Johns, Richard Petty, Lee Petty and Johnny Allen.

That’s exactly what we will have this weekend as the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series take to the 2.5-mile ‘World Center of Speed’ oval. To celebrate the summer races at Daytona, Close Finishes will feature a number of photos from the famed track all this week.

Here’s some shots we took of the raceway recently. Look for more current and historic photos as we lead up to Friday’s Nationwide Series event at Daytona.

As always, thanks for supporting Close Finishes.

That’s Lee Petty’s No. 42 Oldsmobile convertible in the foreground prior to the running prior to the Rebel 300 that year. Petty started ninth and finished 29th in the event.

In all, Petty ran seven of the 19 NASCAR convertible races contested that season winning one – at the old Charlotte half-mile track the week after this photo was taken.

Petty would compete 28 convertible races in his career and 427 NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) events. Petty scored 54 wins, 231 Top-5 and a staggering 332 Top-10 finishes in those 427 events. His biggest win came in the inaugural Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in 1959.

Bowyer broke into the NASCAR ranks starting sixth and finishing 36 ^th in the O’Reilly 300 NASCAR Busch (now Nationwide) Series race at Texas Motor Speedway on April 3, 2004. He made the jump to the Cup division just a little over a year later wheeling a Richard Childress Racing Chevy in the spring race at Phoenix finishing 22 ^nd .

Since then, Bowyer has found his stride winning his first Cup race at New Hampshire last fall and following it up this season with a victory at Richmond. In all, Bowyer has already made 89 Cup starts with 13 Top-5 and 36 Top-10 finishes.

On the Nationwide side, Bowyer has notched six wins in starts and owns one victory in just seven NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts. He currently leads the Nationwide points battle by a 188-marker margin over Brad Keselowski.

Heading into this weekend at Loudon, Bowyer has four career starts at the track His one win there is his only shining moment as he has posted a 22.2 finishing average in those four events.

Bowyer, 29, is from Emporia, KS.

Many thanks to Russ Lake for the photo.

Martin, shown here behind the wheel of an ASA stock car at Madison International Speedway (Oregon, WI) in this 1986 Close Finishes photo, was a terror on the short tracks winning multiple   ASA, ARTGO and open competition races over the three seasons.

The first great star of the Roush Racing NASCAR stable, Martin returned to the Cup ranks in 1988 competing in all 29 events. A year later, he scored six poles before earning his first Cup victory at Rockingham, NC and the rest, as you would say, is history.

In all, ‘Shorty’ has competed in 710 Cup races to date winning 35 of them. He’s also captured 48 Nationwide events in just 227 starts and owns 16 Top-5 finishes in only 23 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts – seven of them victories.

But it was back in the day – the mid-1980’s when Martin came of age at short tracks like Madison, LaCrosse, Wisconsin Dells, Rockford and Slinger – and Close Finishes was there to see it.

Check out the crew member’s attire – short sleeved shirts and pants – no fire suits. There isn’t a helmet to be seen other than the one on Elliott. Even the official in the background doesn’t have a helmet on.

Amazing, and very, very dangerous at the time. It’s crazy today - jumping out in front of a speed controlled car while wearing the latest safety equipment is insane. Now think of what it was like doing it in 1987 with no protective equipment and no speed limit on pit road.

Death defying.

We bow to anyone who ever did this back then. It was just nuts to be standing that close and shooting it at the time. What a thrill.

Look a little deeper into the photo and you’ll also get a glimpse of Bristol in the mid-1980’s. No massive grandstands in either turn, but vistas out to rolling valleys between the mountains.

Early in his career, Elliott wasn’t exactly known for his short-track success, so a fourth-place finish in the Valleydale Meats 500 this day was a huge success for the team. In all, Elliott has made 42 Bristol Cup starts to date, notching one victory (Spring, 1988), six top-five and 14 top-10 finishes.

Don't forget to check out all the images in the CloseFinishes.com Feature Photo Gallery. Just click on Photo Archive icon in the Black Bar at the top of this story and image.

Thanks... and Enjoy.

Thanks to a vintage stock car race at The Milwaukee Mile this weekend, that’s exactly what fans got to see as this 1957 Edsel (shown here in the garage area) and nearly two dozen other classic racers took to the famed Wisconsin State Fair Park oval Friday afternoon prior to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.

Tons of cool cars – old Chevys, Dodges, Fords, Plymouths, and yes – even the Edsel – took to the track. While some of the cars, like the Edsel, weren’t that competitive and were there just to be a part of the event, others raced hard and all put on a great show.

Look for a CloseFinishes.com photo gallery of all the cars on hand for the event later on this week.

In the meantime, think about how much fun it had to be to tool around the track in this Edsel – definitely one of a kind and still kicking.

Shown here in this Russ Lake photo, Turn 4 had a number of trees both in and outside the raceway. There was also a creek that ran through the infield.

Also of note here are the track firemen and other officials, who casually stand outside the guard rail as the field flashes by.

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will compete at the famed Milwaukee oval on Friday while the Nationwide Series will be in action this Saturday at “America’s Legendary Oval.”

Seats for both events are still available at The Milwaukee Mile ticket office.

This week, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck and Nationwide Series will be in action at the famed Milwaukee oval. The Truck race is set for Friday while the Nationwide race takes the green flag Sunday. Both are one-day shows and the Truck race will also feature a vintage stock car event Friday afternoon.

Make sure you check back every day this week to see more historic photos – courtesy of good friend and recently departed Milwaukee Mile historian Al Krause – in the Feature Photo section of CloseFinishes.com.

Pictured here is the start of the 1956 AAA Stock Car Division race at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds. If you look closely, you’ll see the field is populated with several different makes of cars including a Buick, Hudson, Packard and a Nash.

Also check out the cool period views of the infield vehicles and pit crews along the wall.

Great stuff.

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck and Nationwide Series will be in action this weekend at the famed Milwaukee oval. The Truck race is set for Friday while the Nationwide race takes the green flag Sunday. Both are one-day shows and the Truck race will also feature a vintage stock car event Friday afternoon.

Make sure you check back every day this week to see more historic photos – courtesy of good friend and recently departed Milwaukee Mile historian Al Krause – in the Feature Photo section of CloseFinishes.com.

In addition to the old, covered grandstand, a quarter-mile dirt track is clearly evident in this shot. From the 1930’s through the late 1960’s the Milwaukee Stock Car Club held weekly midget and later modified stock car races on the smaller oval.

If you look close enough, you can also see a pair of goalposts in the middle of the smaller track. That’s because the Green Bay Packers would play an occasional game at the Wisconsin State Fair Park facility.

Make sure you check back every day this week to see more historic photos – courtesy of good friend and recently departed Milwaukee Mile historian Al Krause – in the Feature Photo section of CloseFinishes.com.

The track – the oldest, continuously operated auto racing facility in America – opened in 1876 as a horseracing facility on the farm of local resident George Stevens. Developed into the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in 1891, the 130-acre tract of land was the site of several different kinds of events in its early years including harness racing as shown below in this 1907 photo.

The Milwaukee Mile held its first automobile race in 1903. Organized by the Milwaukee Auto Club, the two-day meet provided plenty of thrills and the unfortunate death of Columbus, OH driver Frank Day.

While auto racing at Milwaukee captured the imagination of locals throughout the early part of the century, other events like the one pictured below also drew plenty of attention.

The 1921 photo below shows a Memorial Day event where the ladder stuntman Al Wilson was going to use to climb up to the plane got tangled with the exhaust pipe of a vehicle driven by Louis Disbrow. Wilson eventually got the ladder untangled, but not before the plane took out a section of chair seats in the front grandstand.

Our guess is there will be no airplane stunts at Milwaukee this weekend – just great Truck and Nationwide Series racing.

Make sure you check back every day this week to see more historic Milwaukee photos – courtesy of good friend and recently departed Milwaukee Mile historian Al Krause – in the Feature Photo section of CloseFinishes.com.

While Allison is an acknowledged member of the ‘Alabama Gang,’ most folks don’t know that he spent some of his summers as a youth in Wisconsin. There, he learned to love cheese, brats and – of course – beer, as well as auto racing.

Throughout his NASCAR career, which totaled 718 Cup events from 1961-1988, Allison also competed in countless short track events racing his own equipment. Competing mostly just for fun. Allison was a regular at the Slinger Nationals in the 1980’s, a high-profile late model stock event that drew only the best short-track racers of the time.

The epic parties that surrounded the event – along with the great action on the tight Slinger high-banked oval – were attractive to Allison, who was sponsored at the time by Milwaukee brewing giant Miller Beer.

Ah, the good old days – we sure miss ‘em.

Here’s one for you, Bobby.

Ned Jarrett competed in 352 NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) events from 1953-1966 winning 50 of them. While his most recognized car is the dark blue Ford he won the 1965 Grand National championship in, Jarrett had success driving other makes as well including this 1962 Chevy owned by B.G. Holloway. Pictured here at the old Rambi Raceway in Myrtle Beach, SC on April 21, 1962, the car ran in 52 of the 53 NASCAR Grand National events that season scoring six wins and 35 Top-10 finishes. On this day, Jarrett finished third at Rambi – opened in 1958 and eventually renamed Myrtle Beach Speedway.

This is a Jack Walker photo and was made available to Close Finishes by Carolina Race Place ( www.raceplace.zoomshare.com ).

To see other great historic and cool racing photos stored in our Featured Photo area, pleace click on the Photo Archive button on the top right of this box.

Turner was the embodiment of a NASCAR racer in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Wild, unpredictable, and incredibly skilled behind the wheel of a race car, Turner won 17 NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) events in his 17-year career dating from 1949-1968. He started sixth and finished ninth in the first-ever NASCAR ‘Strictly Stock’ event at Charlotte in 1949 and later that year won the fourth-ever NASCAR event driving a Hubert Westmoreland Oldsmobile to victory at Langhorne, PA.

Turner, who was banned from the sport by Bill France, Sr. from 1961-1965 because he tried to form a driver’s union, also scored 38 victories in the old NASCAR Convertible Division – 22 of those wins coming in just 42 starts during the 1956 season.

Here, Turner is shown in his final season - 1968 – and with his final race car – the No. 14 Tom Freidkin Plymouth. Turner made six starts in the car that season finishing in the Top 10 four times.

Turner, a Roanoke, VA native, died in an airplane crash on October 4, 1970. He was 45 years old.

This photo is attributed to Tom Kirkland and is part of the Jack Walker collection at Carolina Race Place ( www.raceplace.zoomshare.com ).

The two-mile track located just west of Detroit in Brooklyn, MI, has hosted 77 Cup, 16 Nationwide, and 8 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event since that opening day when Cale Yarborough steered his Wood Brothers Mercury to victory over David Pearson, Richard Petty, LeRoy Yarbrough and Charlie Glotzbach.

This weekend, the Truck Series will compete at Michigan on Saturday followed by the Cup race Sunday. Travis Kvapil is the defending champion of the Truck Series event while Carl Edwards captured the first of two Cup events at the track.

Dopkins was released from the hospital on Wednesday and has returned home to Wisconsin. He is expected to make a full recovery and return to action later on this season.

Get well soon, B.

All NASCAR competitors that season – including champion Joe Weatherly - carried the decal pictured here.

This decal photo is courtesy of Carolina Race Place ( www.raceplace.zoomshare.com ).

Langley, who would win again at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, VA later that year, finished his NASCAR career with those two victories in 534 starts dating from 1954-1981.

Langley would continue his NASCAR career long after his driving days were over becoming the official pace car driver for the Cup Series from 1989-1996. Langley suffered a heart attack and died on November 21, 1996 while driving the pace car at a NASCAR exhibition in Suzuka, Japan.

Here’s Langley (30), and Jim Reed (7) battling down the back straight in the 1961 Southern 500 at Darlington. This Jack Walker photo is courtesy of Carolina Race Place ( www.raceplace.zoomshare.com ).

McMurray, who turns 32 today, Tuesday, June 3, made five Truck Series starts that year with a season-best 11th coming at Las Vegas. McMurray made 16 Truck Series starts in 2000 winning a pair of poles at Michigan and Nashville. He also made his Busch (now Nationwide) Series debut in 2000 competing in two events.

Subbing for an injured Sterling Marlin, McMurray’s big break came in 2002 when he won the UAW-GM 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Lowes Motor Speedway. In all, the Joplin, MO native has made 199 career Cup starts – his 200th start coming this weekend at Pocono, PA.

McMurray has 10 career NASCAR victories – two in Cup, seven in Nationwide, and one in Trucks. He is within a million dollars of eclipsing the $30 million in NASCAR career earnings.

Busch, shown here behind the wheel of his No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Cup car, won the second of two Pocono races last season - the Pennsylvania 500 last July - over Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Denny Hamiln, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. The victory gave Busch 17 Cup triumphs in his NASCAR career.

Gordon is the defending champion of this weekend's event at Pocono.

That's a lot of fun for $40 - especially these days.

Here's a couple of cool hot rod shots to get you in the mood to seek out your closest motorsports event Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

Summer's here. Enjoy the weekend.

Lia earned the win with a daring bump and run, three-wide, grind it out run to the checkered flag. Lia, who started 28th, drove from the back of the pack twice posting 42 green flag passes (34 in the corners) in the 250-lap race.

The only lap he led was the final lap.

You can be sure this photo will be in the Close Finishes archive of all-time favorite images - It's not every day you win a race and spotting Donny Lia to this one was a huge thrill.

A great day in every way.

Lia started 28 ^th in the 36-truck field and bulled his way to the front to score his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory in just his eighth career division start. It was also the first win for John Close as a spotter in the Truck Series in 80 career starts and the initial series win for TRG Motorsports.

Lia led only the final lap, blasting by David Starr and Todd Bodine in a classic Truck Series three-wide battle.

For us at Close Finishes, it doesn’t get better than this. Hope you enjoyed the race too.

The flags, card stunts, mini-invasions, flyovers and anthems are nice, but on this Memorial Day, please remember the people who work, are injured, and die on behalf of our country every day.

Please donate to your favorite U.S. Millitary Veterans association today.

Happy Memorial Day to all.

Baker, shown here in a 1953 Grand National event at Darlington (SC) Speedway, dominated the 1957 Grand National season posting an amazing 30 Top-5 finishes in his 40 events en route to the division championship that year. His per race finishing average for the entire season was a stellar 4.7.

In his 1957 Martinsville win, Baker’s Hugh Babb-owned 1957 Chevrolet led 113 laps in a race that the average winning speed turned out to be 57.318 miles per hour. Paul Goldsmith won the pole for the event wheeling a Smokey Yunick 1957 Ford around the tiny Martinsville track in an average speed of 65.695.

Baker, who would win 46 times in 636 starts in his 26-year NASCAR career, cashed $3,170 for his Martinsville win – 51 years ago today.

This photo courtesy of Jack Walker and Carolina Race Place ( http://www.raceplace.zoomshare.com ).

Richard’s career racing resume consists of more than 1,000 go-kart races (winning more than 25 percent of them), two seasons in the Professional Auto Truck Racing Series (PARTS), four years in the Southern All-Starts SuperTruck Series, and a season in the Georgia Asphalt Series and American Speed Association (ASA) Late Model Stock Car ranks.