Forum: Oklahomatidbits.com General Forum (go)
Moderators:  /  David Smith Jr

August 3, 1956 -- The only appearance of NASCAR's Grand National (now Sprint Cup) Circuit at Fairgrounds Speedway. Lee Petty leads the most laps in a Plymouth on the half-mile, but Jim Paschal wins in a Mercury.

(Photo: Paschal's Mercury a month later at the Southern 500 (middle car))

August 4, 1956 -- NASCAR sours on Oklahoma during an aborted race at Tulsa. The dust conditions are so dangerous, Lee Petty stops his car, climbs the flagstand and personally red flags the race. The race is not completed and is not rescheduled. Cup racing never returns to Oklahoma.

1956-2010: Oklahoma misses out on the NASCAR boom.

* * * *

August 3, 2010 -- A group of titanic dingleberries votes to accept expensive contract for quickie demolition of Fairgrounds Speedway. Plymouth, Mercury, Jim Paschal & Lee Petty all gone.

August 4, 2010 -- Formal demolition begins. History and tradition are forever lost. Monny-grubbing hypocrite Clay Bennett and his acerebral lapdogs Mick Cornett & Tim O'Toole "win."

BONUS: it may not be Cornett's folly (ALMS in Bricktown) but here's some sports cars on the half-mile (still photo from the "State Fair" (1962) film shoot)).

Boycott, I can ateast that some of us made this point known to the powers that be. They just did not want to hear any of it.

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands 
in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he 
stands at times of challenge and controversy." 
Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Erich Petersen