When The Boys Played In The Dirt; Long before the boys of stock car racing were proving themselves on the high banks of Daytona International Speedway, the pioneers of the sport were bouncing over sand hills and slinging mud along the beach of the Daytona Beach Road Course. Drivers such as Tim Flock, Curtis Turner and Red Byron would take the green flag at the beginning of a 2 mile stretch of pavement on Highway A1A. Their cars would be humming full song and pushing every single RPM the engines could crank out before hard braking into the turn taking them onto the sandy beach. Once in the sand, they would fly across the beach for another 2 miles, brake for the next left hand turn, that usually spelled doom for the car on the outside, as they bounced through the rutted grooves back up onto Highway A1A. This was all these drivers knew of Daytona Beach from 1903, until 1953. That was when Bill France Sr., the founder of the sports sanctioning body(NASCAR), saw a whole differe nt type of race at Daytona. France's Idea Of Speed; Bill France Sr. had an idea. He visioned a track unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. However, in order to put his idea into an obtainable possibility, he would need a little help. He turned to an engineer in track building named Charles Moneypenny. Moneypenny first heard Bill's idea and thought the power behind the throne of NASCAR had gone crazy as a fruit bat. France explained that he wanted turns banked so high that the cars could be seen from all around the track. Moneypenny listened as the NASCAR leader told of how the cars would be capable of reaching speeds never reached in the sport before. Yep, crazy as a fruit bat. Moneypenny went to Detroit, Michigan and met with the head of Ford Motor Company's Test Track, The Proving Grounds. There, Moneypenny could actually see what France was thinking. They were about to shock the NASCAR Nation and buckle the knees of fans and drivers alike. Money, Time and Patience Equals a Dream Come True; After returning from Detroit with the general idea of how it was to be built, Moneypenny began to develop a legend. With a little more help from the guys at Ford on how to transition a track from that high a banked turn into a straight, the plans were coming together. A committee was formed strictly for the track of France's fantasy. They found 447 acres of land and leased it for a mere $10,000.00 per year, on a 50 year lease. Taking care of his part, France began hunting sponsors to fund his behemoth of speed. He turned to Texas oil tycoon Clint Murchison. Murchison handed Bill $600,000.00 and even loaned him the equipment he would need to tackle such a huge task. On November 25th, 1957, crazy or not, Bill France's idea formed in the dirt that day in 1953, began to take on a shape. Miles of Dirt, Tons of Asphalt, Pounds of Pain; Huge bulldozers rolled into the infield and began digging out the ends of the track, where those huge banking turns Franc e dreamed of would be formed. When the trucks finally stopped hauling the dirt out of these massive holes, several million tons of dirt had been removed. To form the long straights, 22 tons of lime mortar was poured to form the base for tons of asphalt to be laid upon. With the banking so high, the paving trucks were beginning to slide back down the turns. Fearing they could tip over and begin to roll, Moneypenny devised a plan. Using the huge bulldozers, he parked them at the top of each turn. Taking log chains, he chained the paving trucks to the bulldozers. The dozers and trucks would roll simultaneously through the corners, slowly moving lower each lap around until every inch had a layer of asphalt. One Track Closes and A Legend is Born; On February 23rd, 1958 the track made of sand held it's last race. Almost a year later, on Feb. 6, 1959 the first NASCAR Stock Cars took to the monstrosity known as Daytona International Speedway for practice. 16 days later, on February 22nd 1959, over 42,000 spectators flooded the gates of Daytona to witness history. It costed an eventual $3 million to complete, yet the track has made that over a single race weekend since then. Long gone are the pioneers of that idea in Bill France Sr.'s head. Moneypenny, and France himself would have never dreamed that the monster they built so many years ago, would hold so many moments in time. Captured forever in our memories and in record books.
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