FINDING ADVENTURE on the TRACK

The pioneers who paved the way

Story by John Garrison Jr. Submitted Photos

World War II had just ended, and America emerged victorious. The economic engine turned from war production to consumer production. People who, during wartime rationing of everything from rubber, gasoline, meat and butter, suddenly had plentiful supplies of everything.

American auto manufacturing had quit producing cars from 1943 to 1945 to support the war effort. American ingenuity, however, came alive after 1945. People felt good about America, and new inventions abounded and by that same year, Americans were saving on average 21percent of their earnings.

In a good economy, hard-working people like to enjoy some of the fruits of their labor with social activities, and many turned to sports events.

Couple all that with a re-emerged automobile industry, and the everyday American, blue-collar guy looked for ways to continue the good feeling that competition and another chance to win brought about.

Enter the thrilling stock car racing industry where an old family jalopy dragged from the barnyard would get a new lease on life as a racecar.

Imagine a group of guys coming together as a ragtag team to build a racecar. One might have mechanic’s skills, another as a body and fender/ painter/welder type and yet another exsoldier with courage enough to drive at breakneck speeds.

This is how a whole new enthusiasm for motorsports began in Alabama and across the nation. Despite automobile racing existing prior to this period, it was reserved primarily to a small population and cars built specifically for racing and not your typical old family coupe or sedan, thus the term “stock car.”

Around Birmingham, circa 1948, there was a track carved out of an old field near Roebuck called the lronbowl Speedway. The track was a dirt oval and on Sunday afternoons, crowds would gather to see the daredevil field of drivers and their home-built machines compete to be the first to the checkered