Research reveals Kitsap NASCAR flop

BREMERTON, Wash. – A proposal to build a speedway near Bremerton National Airport isn’t the first attempt to bring NASCAR professional racing to Kitsap County.

Forty-nine years ago, on Aug. 4, 1957, a much-hyped NASCAR stock-car event was held at Kitsap County’s airport as part of Seafair activities. Organizers expected spectators to flock to the races to see 30 to 40 of the West’s top drivers compete. Similar races held previously in Western Washington drew 15,000 to 20,000 onlookers. Organizers rented buses to provide shuttle service to ease anticipated Kitsap traffic snarls.

But only 14 drivers and about 2,500 spectators showed.

Few today remember details about the race, including winner Parnelli Jones, who became famous after he later switched to Indy car racing and won the Indianapolis 500 as a driver and car owner. He won the Bremerton race eight days short of his 24th birthday.

“I do remember winning a race up there,” said Jones, now 72 and living in California.

Ken Mahan, an ardent supporter of local racing for years, was 18 when NASCAR came to Bremerton. At the time, he was more interested in sprint cars.

“I don’t remember much about it,” he said. “… I just remember those cars going around in a circle.”

Jim Fox, who owned a Kitsap Way gas station, recalls that two of the contestants asked him to sponsor them by providing gasoline for their cars. He said he gave them each 100 gallons of gas, with a little extra kick.

“I doctored the gas up,” Fox said.

He added methanol to the fuel, which the drivers noticed before the race. Fox said they asked if he had put something funny in the gas. When he admitted he had, they told him not to bother – they had their own ingredients for cheating.

So he told them to put that fuel in their truck and he’d give them 100 new gallons for racing.

In the Northwest in the 1950s, the racing of high-value, flashy sports cars – Corvettes, Ferraris, Jaguars and more – drew thousands of fans to events usually held at airports. Courses could be laid out easily there, away from city streets. The airports also could accommodate large crowds.

Shelton Airport was home to a popular track beginning in 1952, when sports car racing was beginning to take off in the Puget Sound area, according to the book “Long Straights and Hairpin Turns” by Martin Rudow.

In 1953, officials with Seattle’s Seafair festival sponsored a sports car race that drew 20,000 fans to Everett’s Paine Field, according to Rudow’s book.

While race officials were thrilled, the Washington State Patrol was not. Troublesome traffic was one motivator for moving the 1954 race to Kitsap County Airport.

“All involved were a little disappointed in the much smaller spectator turnout than the previous year had boasted; the longer distances from population centers was probably to blame,” wrote Rudow. His book does not note specific attendance figures.

Still, the race returned in 1955 and was successful. The 1956 race drew about 15,000 people.

In 1957, the Bremerton Civil Air Patrol, sponsor of races at the airport, made a change. The organization, for unspecified reasons, brought in a NASCAR stock-car event instead of sports cars.

Stock-car racing, involving modified versions of cars anyone might drive on a daily basis, had been a kind of outlaw sport until 1947. That’s when Bill France – whose descendants want to bring NASCAR to Kitsap – founded the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.

By 1957, most NASCAR races were taking place in the South. But there was a West Coast circuit, with several races in California. Portland also hosted seven NASCAR events between 1956 and 1957.

Stories in the Bremerton Sun made repeated references to the cars being identical to those on showroom floors, other than elements approved by NASCAR’s governing body in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Kitsap race organizers had high hopes. Civil Air Patrol officials announced about 3,000 grandstand seats would be available for $3 each, only through advanced ticket sales. General admission was priced at $2.

In mid-July, tickets went on sale at Brown’s Drug store and at the Palace for the Aug. 4 race. California racers Eddie Pagan and Lloyd Dane, ranked among the top five nationally, were scheduled to compete.

By July 31, about 30 or 40 racers still were expected to compete for $4,600 in prize money. The winner of the 80-lap main event would claim $800.

Race organizers publicly worried about traffic problems that the expected crowd would create. The Civil Air Patrol arranged to have Greyhound buses shuttle spectators to avoid traffic tie-ups. Round-trip bus fare to and from the ferry terminal was $1, according to newspaper accounts.

A final full-page advertisement appeared in the Bremerton Sun the day before the race. “Let’s All Go to the First Grand National Seafair New Car Race,” the ad read. It promised “Thrills! Chills! Spills!” on the “Dangerous Track.”

Despite all the preparation, marketing and expectations, the race was a flop.

The Civil Air Patrol “took a bath” on the event, Rudow wrote. About 2,500 spectators showed up, only 2,000 of whom paid to get in, according to the seven-paragraph story about the race in the Sun.

Danny Graves, driving a 1957 Chevrolet, led the race for the first 74 laps until his motor blew up. Jones took the lead in the 75th lap of the 80-lap race and won in a time of 1 hour, 10 minutes, 53.15 seconds. A photo published in the Sun shows Jones’ No. 11 Ford almost hitting another car that spun out in the east turn.

Graves won the trophy dash earlier in the day. He was rewarded with a trophy and a kiss from Marsha Hunter, Bremerton’s Seafair princess.

The disappointing crowd effectively ended big-ticket racing at the airport. The next Seafair race went to Shelton and NASCAR has never been back to Washington to sponsor a race that counted in the national standings.