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Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Bluebirds soar, then ‘Big Bill’ joins show
By KEN WILLIS
NEWS-JOURNAL SPORTS WRITER
DAYTONA BEACH — The 1930s were a clear case of “out with the old and in with the new.”
English sportsman Sir Malcolm Campbell -- knighted, as was his former rival Henry Segrave -- would leave the scene. But not before thrilling the masses again with his constantly evolving “Bluebird.”
The ´30s brought a tall, young mechanic from Washington, D.C., Bill France, who moved here with his wife, Annie, and infant son Billy.
The decade also brought the re-emergence of Sig Haugdahl, a mechanic who moved to Daytona. Haugdahl set an unofficial speed record the previous decade. In 1936, he found a way to keep the roar of racing engines alive on Daytona Beach by designing a race course that included beach, hardtop and a pair of punishing turns connecting the two.
The first winter after the 1929 crash of the stock market -- and resulting launch of the Great Depression -- saw the chase for speed go flop. The “Silver Bullet,” stretching out to 31 feet, was the longest car ever to test the clock on Daytona Beach. But it wasn´t the fastest. Not even close.
With well-regarded British racer Kaye Don behind the wheel, the ill-handling Bullet knuckleballed through a run of just more than 190 mph, embarrassingly short of the stated goal of 250.
That summer, while attempting a speed run in his boat, “Miss England,” Sir Henry Segrave died in a crash. Campbell, his countryman and fellow speed freak, continued stretching the limits of man and machine. He crossed the ocean in 1931 and bumped the record to 245.73 mph. The next year, Campbell returned, again without a challenger, and slid the needle to 253.97 mph. Upon leaving, however, he hinted at his eventual goal of 300 mph.
During the next three years, Campbell never posted an average of better than 276.82 mph. He was clocked at 330 in 1935, but official speed runs were the average of two trips -- one in each direction, within an hour of each other. Campbell couldn´t piece together a decent run on the return trip following his 330 clocking, and missed a great opportunity.
In his book, “Speed on Sand,” Bill Tuthill describes standing in the dunes and watching the “Bluebird.”
“First, a black dot appeared far up the beach and quickly took shape as it approached in utter silence,” he wrote. “The Bluebird was outrunning its exhaust noise. A blur and a sudden blast like a clap of thunder and it was gone.”
It was gone, all right. A new speed stage had been discovered on the dry, ancient, salty lakebeds of Utah, and when Campbell finally reached his goal of 300 miles per hour, he did it on a 13-mile course in Wendover, Utah. Four years later, Campbell turned to the water and set a new speedboat record. Just like his old nemesis, Segrave, Campbell was the fastest man on land and sea.
Meanwhile, with Utah the new destination for speed seekers, Daytona Beach needed to do something -- anything -- to keep the area alive as a racing destination. City leaders turned to Haugdahl, who convinced them that a viable track could be carved from beach and blacktop. He designed a track that included 1.5 miles of beach and 1.5 miles of A1A and connected the two with wide, sweeping turns where dunes once sat.
The first beach/road race, which featured stock cars and was sanctioned by the American Automobile Association, was run on March 8, 1936. Any description of that inaugural event convinces you that no one in attendance could´ve possibly seen any future in such an activity. The turns became gummy with churned sand, and cars bogged down and often sat idle for the duration.
The 250-mile race featured several big names from the world of auto racing, including Indy 500 winner Bill Cummings. But it dragged on and on and became little more than a battle of attrition. Though it was hard to determine, Milt Marion was declared the winner. Listed in fifth place was a tall local mechanic with a burning interest in racing -- William Henry Getty France.
That first race was a financial disaster for the city, which lost a reported $22,000 in promoting the event. But Haugdahl, who now had the help of a highly interested Big Bill France, convinced the local Elks Club to promote the next year´s race. As for fixing the course, the soft sands in the turns were supplemented with healthy doses of marl -- a combination of clay, sand and limestone -- which didn´t totally eliminate the problem but did improve the situation.
The Elks´ adventure wasn´t as disastrous as the 1936 race, but it lasted just that one year. By 1938, Big Bill was very much in charge of staging the annual beach/road race, which eventually began showing signs of financial success. France, with local businessman Charlie Reese, promoted two races in ´38 -- one in February and one on Labor Day weekend. France nearly won the race himself in 1939 but ran out of gas in the late stages.
His hard work with automobile racing notwithstanding, France´s best move as an early-days promoter may have involved racing of the two-wheeled variety. In 1937, France and the city lured an annual motorcycle race to Daytona Beach´s new race course.
The Daytona 200 was more of a financial and aesthetic success than its four-wheeled counterpart, and helped carry the load of racing interest until the stoppage brought by World War II. The Daytona 200, run today at Daytona International Speedway, is second only to the Indianapolis 500 as the longest-running motorsports event in America.
As for racing on Daytona Beach, the decade of the ´30s began with an utter failure -- the Silver Bullet -- but ended with the insurgence of Big Bill France, who put down the foundation for what became an unimagined success.
When France and his family first arrived in Daytona Beach in 1934, they thought they were destined for Miami. But France turned left when he reached Ormond Beach to check out the hard-packed sands he´d heard so much about.
“When we got to Ormond Beach, the tide was out and it was a beautiful fall day,” he recalled years later. “There was not a soul on the beach, and the water was deep green. I just liked Daytona and we decided it was where we wanted to be.”
Even a man described as a visionary couldn´t possibly have dreamed of what he´d eventually mold from that fine, white sand.
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