Tiny Lund Wins the 1963 Daytona 500

While it’s highly unlikely a team will run the entire 500 miles on only one set of tires in the 2011 Daytona 500, it has been done before and by none other than the Wood Brothers, who never changed tires and made one less pit stop than their rivals to help substitute driver Tiny Lund win the 1963 Daytona 500.

As part of its 600-win series on milestone victories in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Ford Racing looks back at one of the best stories in Daytona 500 history.

The Daytona 500 wasn’t always the first race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.

In NASCAR’s formative years, the schedule often started at places like Concord and Champion Speedway in North Carolina, and sometimes made a quick west coast stop at Riverside International Raceway for a road course race before landing in NASCAR’s backyard.

That was the case in 1963 when the season actually kicked off in November of 1962 with three races before taking a two month break and returning in January at Riverside.  That’s where the year kicked off in earnest and saw Dan Gurney outlast A.J. Foyt in his 1963 Ford to take the checkered flag in a 500-mile marathon.

A four-week hiatus ensued as teams prepared for the fifth running of the Daytona 500 and Marvin Panch focused on becoming the first driver to win the sport’s crown jewel event twice in a career.  He won the 500 in 1961 over Joe Weatherly, and was considered among the favorites behind the wheel of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford.

Just a few days before the 500, however, Panch was involved in a freak sports car accident on the Daytona road course.  The car, which Panch described as a Birdcage Maserati, flipped and burst into flames on the track’s east banking.

“We were down in the pits and Johnny Bruner (NASCAR official) and some of the Firestone people jumped in a station wagon.  I got in there with them and went over to help,” recalled Glen Wood.  “The whole bunch of us got the car turned back over.  Marvin was upside-down in it.  It had those clam doors on it, so they opened from the top, but there was so much pressure on it that Marvin couldn’t get the door open.

“He was picking on it and he said he just about decided this was his last hope,” continued Wood.  “Fire was all about him and at about that time he felt it wiggle and we got the car turned back over.  Tiny Lund and Steve Petrasek of Firestone dragged him out and rolled him around on the ground and got the fire put out.

“Naturally, he was burned so bad that he couldn’t drive our car, so we pondered different drivers,” said Wood.  “We knew Tiny was a pretty fair race driver.  He always had been tough to deal with and with him being one of the main guys that helped Marvin out of the car, it was a no-brainer to put him in there.”

Lund started the race 12^th, which is where Panch qualified the car, but it didn’t take long for the Wood Brothers to develop a pit strategy that not only would help Lund stay up front throughout the day, but ultimately win the race.

“When they started the race it was raining and the track was wet,” said Wood.  “They ran about 10 laps under the caution after the green flag was dropped and then had a caution on lap 36, so we all came in and just gassed up and went back out.”

That allowed the team to figure out its mileage and they realized Lund could easily go 100 miles before stopping again, so that’s what he did.  After stopping for the second time, the Woods once again recalculated and decided they could push it two more laps.  They directed Lund to stay out for 42 laps the next two runs, which put them in an ideal situation.

“After that 36-lap caution, we wanted him to draft and save fuel,” said Leonard Wood.  “When it came down to the end of the race, we didn’t have but 40 laps to go and we knew he could make it because we had been running 42.  When Fred Lorenzen and Ned Jarrett had not made their laps up from that first caution, we knew they were gonna have to stop, so we were just waiting for it to happen.”

Glen Wood said that even though he felt confident they were going to make it, there were some anxious moments.

“They got to talking it up on the loudspeaker and asking, ‘Can they make it?  Can they make it?’  That got us to wondering to ourselves whether we could make it or not, but we felt sure that if we got it full, Tiny could make it.  Sure enough, he pulled it off.”

After driving into victory lane for the first time in his Grand National career, Lund was greeted by pit reporter Chris Economaki, who asked him what he was going to do with the $25,000 prize money he had just won.

The 280-pound, 6’6” native from Iowa enthusiastically said, “Pay our bills!”

Slightly overshadowed in Lund’s storybook win was the fact Ford swept the top five positions with Lorenzen, Jarrett, Nelson Stacy and Gurney finishing second through fifth, respectively.

“That’s a Cinderella story for sure,” reiterated Leonard Wood.  “We ran the whole race on the same set of tires.  The reason we did that is we already had our pit stops worked out, but there’s always that chance of cross-threading a lug or something like that.  At that time, your lugs weren’t quite as good as we eventually got them to be, so you didn’t want to take a chance.  Plus, we wanted to make sure we kept him up in the draft, so we’d always have a quick pit stop.”

For his actions in helping rescue Panch, Lund was awarded the prestigious Carnegie Medal for heroism.  He eventually went on to win five Grand National races in his career before being killed in an accident during the Talladega 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Aug. 17, 1975.

Gresham Motorsports Park Logo

According to Gresham Motorsports Park General Manager, the Camping World Series East race will mark the return of NASCAR to the historic half-mile Georgia oval on Saturday, August 28, 2010.

“This is a great day for us,” said Elliott. “Gresham Motorsports Park opened as Jefco Speedway in 1967 and the first event was a NASCAR Sportsman (now Nationwide) race won by ‘Tiger’ Tom Pistone. Later, NASCAR greats Cale Yarborough and Bobby Isacc won what are now NASCAR Sprint Cup races here. To say we are elated to have a NASCAR event back on our schedule is an understatement.”

The previous incarnation of the NASCAR Camping World Series East division actually has competed at GMP. On July 24, 1968, Tiny Lund won a NASCAR Grand Touring Series at the then named Jefco Speedway. Lund would win another Grand Touring event – the Bulldog 400 – at Jefco on March 16, 1969.

In 2009, the NASCAR Camping World Series East contested 11 races including events at Watkins Glen International, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Dover International Speedway and Iowa Speedway.

The GMP NASCAR event is just one of 12 high-profile oval track races the former Peach State Speedway will stage in 2010. Purchased by the Gresham family in January, the track was closed all season as the facility was leveled and replaced with a state-of-the-art facility. In addition to the complete makeover that included all new racing surfaces and lighting, a drive-thru Infield Tech Center, new grandstands, rest rooms and concession facilities were also constructed. The track is also one of the most technologically advanced in the country featuring 7-loop data/scoring capacity and wireless, remote control solar powered track safety lighting.

The announcement of the 2010 NASCAR Camping World Series East race was made at the 26th-Annual World Crown 300 this weekend – the inaugural event at the new Gresham Motorsports Park track.

- Gresham Motorsports Park Press Release

In 1980 at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida, George White put on his head and neck restraint device, strapped himself into a Cadillac and crashed head on into a concrete barrier. Local law enforcement officials in attendance clocked the car at 59 miles per hour

In 1971, George White would have never imagined that pushing a broom around Bobby Allison’s race shop could lead to such a life long career. From the first day in that shop, George began amassing an amazing amount of racing knowledge of all sorts. He eventually became a valued and seasoned member of Allison’s crew.

Over that time, George witnessed so many car crashes. Driver’s were then, as now, dying of head and neck injuries…what is now called basal skull fracture.

The crashes with these types of injuries and death, those of Friday Hassler at Daytona in 1972 and Tiny Lund at Talladega in 1975, George recalls personally and vividly. Those, along with countless others, gave him the idea that restraining the head and neck could conceivably assist drivers in surviving these devastating crashes, while helping to eliminate some of the injuries these drivers were experiencing.

In 1979, with these thoughts in mind, George White developed the FIRST head and neck restraint system. He had so much confidence in his device, that in 1980 at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida, George put on his head and neck restraint device, strapped himself into a Cadillac and crashed head on into a concrete barrier. Local law enforcement officials in attendance clocked the car at 59 miles per hour! George survived with a severely broken leg, however he sustained no head or neck injuries of any kind! This video clip is a must see. It is absolutely shocking!

White made these devices available to his friends and family. In fact, when Bill Elliott left the Melling Racing #9 in 1992, Dave Mader III, of Alabama, drove 13 races for that team and wore White’s Head and Neck Restraint Device. I spoke with Dave last week about his time at Melling Racing and his use of that device.

Dave informed me he wore George’s device at “…every superspeedway race, but I didn’t wear it at Martinsville.” Dave has been racing for 30 years. He has four NASCAR National Championships (All American Challenge Series now the All Pro Series) in 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988. He stands 6th on the list of championships in a row. He still maintains track championships and track records at various tracks. He has a varied racing career having driven in ASA, ARCA, Busch, Winston Cup and many other series.

“In, I guess, ’89 I drove for Dick Bahre at Atlanta in Winston Cup….and I did wear George’s head restraint deal there for the first time,” said Mader. “George and I are buddies from way back. There were several people that George had been around when he worked for Bobby Allison. He was seeing people get injured (and killed) and he realized what the injury was…a neck injury. He came up with this thing and everybody thought “aw you’re nuts.” But, George basically did some research on this deal. Neck injuries were very common and (everyone thought) race car drivers are liable to get killed. It just wasn’t a big thing until Earnhardt. (Before that) it was all acceptable.”

George White in 1980 wearing his head and neck restrain device prior to crash test

“Back then when drivers died, they didn’t really research it like they do now. So many people have died over the years and they just didn’t understand why. Now, you know, NASCAR has the telemetry in the car. It depends on how you hit. I know, after a wreck several times, I wondered how people live through that.”

“So, he saw what was happening and came up with that device and I wore it at all the superspeedway races that I ran. And I had a lot of people ask “What is that?” It hooked on my helmet and no body thought anything about it. It is so sad that that man came up with something like this that long ago. And he crash tested that himself. I can’t believe he did that!”

“My daddy (Dave Mader, II) was a brick mason and he was a very good race car driver. He won 430 races over 24 years and he beat everybody’s name you can mention in the country (from that era). He was one of the first members of NASCAR in 1949. People have given their lives to this sport. So, there have been so many drivers over the years who have died from these same injuries. The reason I say that is because I have experienced some terrible impacts and I’ve been fortunate that I’m still here. I’ve lived through them.”

“But, George knew about these injuries, figured it out and did something about it. To think of it being worse than what I lived through really gets your attention. No wonder people died. I wore that thing (George’s device) in Winston Cup, Busch and ARCA…anytime I ran a super speedway. I wore it at Charlotte, Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta, Pocono, Michigan and I was fortunate. The only time I did wreck with it on was in the 125 at Daytona. There was a wreck in the tri-oval and I spun out and hit the inside wall and ended right on the end of pit road. The way I hit was right front, right rear which was a good neck out to the right crash. It wasn’t near the hardest impact I ever took, but it was the fastest one.”

Dave is 47 years old and still racing to this day. He saw the potential for George’s device when he ran the superspeedways and can see it’s potential to this day. He still has the original device George gave him so many years ago and hopes someday to return it to him, as a momento.

The 1980 crash test video clip says it all. I have watched it over and over again and am amazed that George survived that crash! To know this device was developed so long ago…23 years ago, is even more astonishing. It has been reported that these devices, small enough for stock cars, have only been around for 10 years or so. That information is obviously incorrect.

There is easy entrance and exit of the race car with the use of this White Head Restaint Device. Five crash tests have been completed at Wayne State University in Michigan to date. And George White’s device is much more affordable than other such devices to drivers from all racing series.

Bruno Tropeano, associate to George White, had this to add. “The tests [at Wayne State] accelerate a crash sled carrying a dummy and a race car cage into a fixed wall and measure the forces acting on the dummy from the start of the acceleration to the runs conclusion.”

“We were told that our neck forces could not exceed 3000 Newtons in order to have viable head restraint system, a Newton being a metric measure of force. The 3000 Newton level is apparently the level at which a driver will sustain a fatal neck injury.”

The Current (2002) White H&N Restraint Device

George truly believes, “I have as much confidence today in our current restraint device as I did when I crash tested the original device in 1980.”

As technolgy advances you can bet George will be right there with it. To learn more about the original and current head and neck restraint device please visit speedwaysafetyequipment.com. Be sure to witness for yourself the shocking crash video clip of 1980, under the FOX 6 News Crew link. Or you can call George at 205-491-2109.

Thank you George White, Bruno Tropeano and Dave Mader for your time and knowledge. I’ll keep in touch, for certain!

all photos courtesy of www.speedwaysafetyequipment.com