|| *Comments on the 1955 Southern 500:* View the most recent comment <#31> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. Anonymous posted: 05.31.2007 - 11:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Last Cup start for Lloyd Moore, Nascar's oldest Living winner. 2. Tom posted: 11.15.2007 - 7:14 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Debut for Dick Beaty 3. SK posted: 12.27.2007 - 8:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Joe Weatherly, making only his third career start, puts on quite a show as he leads the most laps in the race but ultimately crashes out. 4. Sébastien posted: 06.23.2009 - 2:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Slick Smith #14 was sponsored by "Mercury Outboards" too. Tim Flock still had #300 (upside down) on his roof. Van Van Wey spun at least 3 or 4 times. an #04 car can be seen on footage of Herb Thomas'cool down lap. two #78 car in the race ? I guess Tojo Stephens ran another number. 5. James W posted: 11.30.2010 - 8:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Arden Mounts nailed Don Duckworth square in the passenger side as Duckworth sat disabled in turn 3. Also, there was a multi car wreck in the middle of the race the nearly took Thomas out. 6. Anonymous posted: 12.10.2010 - 5:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Gwyn Staley and Buck Baker have had their results swapped around. Joe Eubanks was listed as having unofficially finished 6th. Banjo Matthews was listed as having unoffically finished 7th. Marvin Panch was listed as having unofficially finished 8th. Jimmie Lewallen was listed as having unofficially finished 9th. Other entries included: P.L Jones (he probably failed to qualify) Dick Rathmann (withdrew probably, his time was fast enough) 7. Anonymous posted: 02.19.2011 - 12:46 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I wonder if Fred and Junior Johnson were related. Also, there was a #29 car which could be Tojo Stephens. 8. jessie henry posted: 04.23.2011 - 9:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) the best race evenr 9. Anonymous posted: 06.10.2011 - 5:32 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) There were 89 entries for this race. 10. Anonymous posted: 06.10.2011 - 5:32 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) There are two cars starting from 54th and 58th, must be a mistake. 11. Anonymous posted: 06.10.2011 - 6:21 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Fireball Roberts's crew chief was Red Vogt. Supposedly there were 75 cars in this race. Perhaps a few entries were missing, but perhaps a few didn't start and they aren't known. There was a #29 car in this race too. 12. Graham Clayton posted: 06.26.2011 - 7:28 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) A mystery - 7th place is listed as Lou Spears, but the Daytona Beach Morning Journal dated September 6, 1955 says that Jack Maness of Rocky Mount, NC finished 7th. There is no record of a Jack Maness competing in any NASCAR race, so who was he? And who were the "Paper Hangers", the owners of 17th placed finisher Banjo Matthews '55 Oldsmobile? Herb Matthews went the full 500 miles without a tyre change, courtesy of crew chief "Smokey" Yunick, who had visited the Firestone factory in Akron, Ohio, and picked up 4 Indy tyres that had been discarded because they were too hard. 13. Anonymous posted: 10.25.2011 - 11:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Herb Thomas (not Herb Matthews') crew chief was Smokey Yunick. Russ Graham also spun twice in this race, once avoiding Fireball Roberts's M-1 (who had blown a tire and crashed) and then once a couple of laps later on his own.) 14. Anonymous posted: 10.26.2011 - 7:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Also, Jimmy Massey drove car #04 as shown in the race highlights film, as #04 is seen starting inside of Eddie Skinner in #28, where Massey started. 15. Anonymous posted: 12.28.2012 - 10:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Arden Mounts was sponsored by Mounts Hudson Sales. 16. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 07.24.2013 - 4:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3h0tIcvURk Race Footage 17. nascar_vd / racing-reference posted: 11.25.2013 - 2:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Info for this driver: Maurice Thompson (Hometown: Bridgeport, IN) Here Maurice Thompson used a '55 Oldsmobile Note: J.T. Maness drove the car #93 in qualifying but Lou Spears drove the car in the race. Info for this driver: J.T. Maness (Hometown: Rockingham, NC) Note: Some drivers qualified with a 4 laps run (only the first and second qualifying session) and the majority qualified with a 2 laps run (the next 3 qualifying sessions). Drivers list (4 laps qualif) = Fireball Roberts (best of first day and receive the pole), Billy Carden, Joe Weatherly, Bill Widenhouse, Tim Flock (best of second day), Jim Paschal, Joe Eubanks, Speedy Thompson, Buck Baker, Herb Thomas. First day = the first 5 positions on the grid, second day = the 6-10 position on the grid. 3rd, 4th and 5th day (2 laps) = all the rest of the field. 18. Spen posted: 04.15.2015 - 6:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Bud Rackley's status is listed as "connect". Anyone know what that's supposed to mean? 19. Alex posted: 04.15.2015 - 6:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) ^Probably should be a con rod. 20. simonracer posted: 01.02.2016 - 1:02 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Some withdrawals: #3A Bud Geiselman (Raleigh, North Carolina) - Frank Geiselman 1953 Hudson #5 Richard Brownlee (Aberdeen, Maryland) - self owned 1955 Ford #27 Johnny Gouvela (White Plains, New York) - John McVitty 1955 Chevrolet #52 Joe Guide, Jr. - self owned 1954 Hudson Ray Chaike (Cincinatti, Ohio) - Gus Hotlzmeyer 1954 Dodge Mike Giedman (St Paul, Minnesota) - 1955 Buick Lucky Frinnell (Meadville, Pennsylvania) - John Campbell 1955 Plymouth Bill Gross (Falls Church, Virginia) - Addison Chevrolet Company 1955 Chevrolet Charles Hanson (Whiteford, Maryland) - 1955 Oldsmobile J.C. Hardie (Myrtle Beach, South Caorlina) - 1955 Chevrolet Stanely Hill (Sharonville, Ohio) - Robert Gross 1953 Hudson Hooker Hood - self-owned 1954 Oldsmobile Buddy Krebs (East Hartford, Conneticut) - Monn Nigro 1955 Chevrolet John Lindsay (Jersey City, New Jersey) - self-owned 1955 Chevrolet Roscoe Rann (Memphis) - Poole Motor Company 1954 Chrysler 21. simonracer posted: 01.02.2016 - 1:03 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Edit, a typo: Lucky Frinell's name is actually Lucky Grinnell. 22. Graham Clayton posted: 04.24.2016 - 6:11 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) 364 laps gives you 500 miles, so why did the race go for 366 laps? 23. Scott B posted: 04.24.2016 - 11:15 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) Good question. Might have been a scoring error that was corrected post-race in a recount... did they accidently run 2 extra laps? 24. Scott B posted: 04.24.2016 - 11:19 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The two laps led by Bill Widenhouse in this race were the only two for his Grand National career. 25. Rob posted: 11.21.2017 - 9:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Just heard that the secret to the win was some hard tires that Chevy's racing director Mauri Rose got from Briggs Cunningham off his Sebring 12 hour sports cars. The tires were tried two weeks earlier in a USAC race at Milwaukee and won with Marshall Teague driving a Chevy. 26. Brandon posted: 02.21.2018 - 5:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Final race for Cadillac in the Cup Series 27. MSportRev posted: 09.16.2019 - 8:53 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Margin of Victory: 1 lap + 28. Eric posted: 04.19.2020 - 1:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) DC: #93 J.T. Maness - self owned 1955 Chevy 29. RaceFanX posted: 08.11.2020 - 9:22 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) General Motors had a exact replica built of Herb Thomas' winning pale green #92 Chevrolet 150 from this race for inclusion in its GM Heritage Center collection of vehicles. The final fate of the original car isn't known but it was likely raced into the ground long ago and no longer exists. Car was added to the collection alongside a replica of Briggs S. Cunningham's 1950 Cadillac #3 24 Hours of Le Mans racer although the original car there does still exist as part of a Floridian collection. 30. QFH posted: 01.14.2021 - 9:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Smokey Yunick was not even planning to participate in this race, he intended to completely quit the racing scene but NASCAR convinced him to run the Southern 500 as a one off race to appease Chevrolet as they sought to completely prove their "race-proven V8's." Yunick tried to not give in, but eventually gave in for a deal that would give his team $10,000 in exchange for running the race. He went out and bought 175 tires from a failed Le Mans experiment that had been discarded in Akron, OH for $1 each, a deal which his main rival, Carl Kiekhaefer, did not like because he could not get access to the same tires that Yunick was using, accusing him of cheating. Yunick came back at Bill France and accused the Kiekhaefer team of receiving preferential treatment. The win for Herb Thomas became the beginning of Chevrolet's rise to prominence in NASCAR. Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=X91l3wqJnikC&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=1955+columbia+nascar&source=bl&ots=0V-nIsVuan&sig=ACfU3U2x0wEcSlZk_qkYn5ccSP3t4ACb1g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwivmYep7ZzuAhWxpFkKHRC0D9Q4PB DoATAIegQICBAC#v=onepage&q=1955%20columbia%20nascar&f=false pp. 166-168. 31. possum posted: 01.15.2021 - 6:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @30 - that's described, in considerably more colorful detail, in Yunick's autobiography. Yunick said his cost for the race was $1812 for the car and $4 for tires. This was a big deal for Chevrolet, because the small-block V8, which would eventually become the dominant engine in racing, was brand-new for 1955. According to Yunick, Thomas took the car after the race, but he kept the engine, which is now in Don Garlits's museum (it'd be either the first or second NASCAR win for the small block Chevy, depending on whether Fonty Flock's win earlier in the year was with the V8 or the Six). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: