The Battle of the Independents

“I worked my butt off preparing for that race. A year later, I didn’t have no trailer, no truck, no car, no tools, no nothing. I was history. I was historied in 24 weeks.” - Raymond Williams

 

As far as Raymond Williams was concerned, racing a NASCAR Grand National stock car was a magnificent and beautiful idea, and a fast way to get rich. Rushing down concrete-walled straightaways bordered by the blur of cheering thousands, taking off through the steep-banked black asphalt turns, rising quickly as if to meet the sun’s glare halfway. Always turning left, left, on oval tracks from Daytona Beach, Florida, to Ontario, California. Boring holes through the air with a 4,000-pound thunder machine. Williams lived for those injections of life at 200 miles per hour. Beeeeooooowwwwww!

Williams does his racing now from memory and from behind the bar in his “Silver Bucket” oyster house in Orange County, North Carolina. It’s been five years since he last raced regularly, and there are those who say Williams’ fearlessness eventually got him into trouble. 

It’s not that he smashed through a guard rail on one of the Grand National tracks. Instead, his “mistake” was attempting to organize drivers on a minor oval near tiny Rougemont, North Carolina, in 1973. His racing revolt had a noble beginning and a glorious title — “The Independent 250 Stock Car Race.” It was the first, last and only outlaw stock car race involving established Grand National independent drivers. 

The 20 men who accepted the challenge were, by NASCAR’s definition, losers. Ranging in age from 32 to 52, they had logged over 100 seasons of racing between them. Yet only three had ever won Grand National races, and only five could claim victories of any kind in thousands of miles of racing. Putting these strapped-for-money, winless, glory-starved drivers on the same tiny three-eighths-mile, high-banked track became the automobile equivalent of a shark frenzy. Beeeeooooowwwwww! 

The race signaled a reversal in Williams’ view of NASCAR racing. Once he had thought the races were contests proving who was the smartest, most courageous and hardest-working driver on the track. With a little luck, one determined man could win a kiss from the gal in victory lane and the bulk of the purse. The races were noisy, exciting, sensuous, demanding celebrations of the American dream. But after four years of Grand National racing as an independent driver, Williams had serious doubts and invited his fellow independents to seek their fortunes elsewhere. 

The true drama of the “Independent 250” was not in the contest of men and their machines. The real challenge was in stepping out from under the sanction of NASCAR and its all-powerful founder and head, Bill France. “People thought the drivers would be afraid to run because of reprisals from NASCAR,” recalls Williams. In light of NASCAR’s history, the “Independent 250” seemed an outrageous folly. 

Bill France is an imposing six-foot, five-inch man who speaks with the combination of ease and authority of men accustomed to power. He first realized the business potential of organizing stock car drivers when he took over Daytona Beach’s stock car race in the late ’30s. Although the city’s booster clubs lost money in the inaugural events, France made the races along the shoreline profitable. That was the first step eventually leading to the National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing, founded in a smoke-filled Daytona hotel lobby in 1948. Now, three decades and countless controversies later, NASCAR is a family-owned and -operated multimillion dollar business of untold (as in no one knows just how much the big guy is worth) riches. 

France succeeded where others failed in harnessing one of the South’s most powerful natural resources — passionate men and their racing machines. He drove hard bargains with track owners, kept the irascible knot of previously disorganized drivers together and shrewdly perceived racing not as a sport but as entertainment. France constantly juggled the rules to keep his sanctioned races interesting and close. Caution flags flew mysteriously if a driver got too far out front. 

According to France, organizing the fiercely competitive drivers of the rural South — men of an independent bent often ready and willing to cheat — was made easier by the fact that he had started out as a driver. “Because I was one of them, I think they tended to listen to me a little more than an outsider,” he says. “I was able to talk to them and make some sense.” His pitch was not unusual: stick with me boys, and we’ll be rich. France’s ability to back up his words, however, was uncommon.

France’s organization acted as a go-between for the various drivers and independent track owners. Drivers joined with France, who negotiated guaranteed purses and insurance with track owners, for mutual benefit. In addition to establishing a full schedule of races, NASCAR made sure that track owners and promoters would not get out the back door with the fans’ and drivers’ money before races were over. France’s sanction included the right to make and enforce rules; he forced track owners to contribute to the championship point fund and to establish safety standards. All this was accomplished by France’s dogged refusal to compromise. When things didn’t go the way he liked, France wholeheartedly endorsed the Southern boys’ code of conduct: don’t get mad, get even. 

It was not until the early ’60s that a handful of home-grown stars, NASCAR and various track owners began to get rich. France’s first-hand understanding of stock car racing and his unyielding ambition were reflected in the Daytona International Speedway. Built and completed by France in 1959, it was an immediate popular and financial success. The first high-banked superspeedway had been built at Darlington, South Carolina, by Harold Brasington; following France’s Daytona success, high-banked superspeedways were built by other businessmen in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina. The replacement of the early half-mile dirt tracks (known as “bull rings”) by such speed showcases helped lift the sport to Major League status. The 500-mile races came into vogue along with higher ticket prices and outside investors named Ford and Chrysler. 

NASCAR’s second generation of drivers, coupled with the sometimes audacious influence of major factory sponsorships (including investments reported at over $40 million a year), ushered in the roaring ’60s. Leading the way was Richard Petty, son of the first Daytona 500 winner and three-time National Champion, Lee Petty. “The King” won 10 straight races in 1967, and his popularity did for stock car racing in the ’60s what Babe Ruth’s did for baseball in the ’20s. The attention and money invested in the sport grew along with the legend of the handsome, humble, smiling good ol’ star. 

Death was a constant factor in this high-speed decade; but by the ’70s the construction of cars’ roll cages, driver seats and fuel tanks had been perfected, dramatically reducing the risk of death and serious injury in accidents. And speeds were eventually reduced, though only after a driver strike over safety conditions in 1969. These improvements meant that many of the stars of the late ’60s — Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Buddy Baker, Donnie and Bobby Allison — survived accidents to remain heros in the ’70s. 

There are now more than 50 drivers in NASCAR’s Grand National division of NASCAR, but few of them trust its decision-making process, particularly regarding rules. Rules are “the secret of France’s power,” says Humpy Wheeler, Charlotte Motor Speedway’s promoter. “By controlling the garage area — i.e. the rules under which the cars run and how he enforces those rules — he can exert tremendous influence over who wins and who loses. You can’t slow down Houston McTear in the 100-yard dash, but it’s easy to do with Richard Petty in a 500-mile race by controlling the specifications of his car.” 

The changes in player-team-owner relationships which swept through America’s other major pro sports in the ’60s did not occur in NASCAR racing: the relationship between the still-contentious drivers and Bill France, succeeded now by his son, has altered little in 31 years. Grand National racing remains as much politics as sport and entertainment, and bickering about the unfair applications of the rules is a mainstay. The drivers and their mechanics continue to cheat, and NASCAR continues to manipulate the rules. 

Yet the source of France’s power, ironically, is the drivers themselves. By guaranteeing the drivers’ appearance at various independently owned tracks on appointed dates, France and his sanctioning body of NASCAR can exact fees from the track owners plus retain the right to administer the rules. The drivers’ commitment to NASCAR is always on a race-to-race basis, but they show up regularly because no other stock car organization offers a driver the chance to make as much money. 

France himself has always been able to stay ahead of even the biggest stars financially. And like many drivers, he knows how to keep his winnings in the family: NASCAR’s treasurer is wife Anne; the secretary and vice-president is son Jim; and the eldest son, Bill, took over the day-to-day operations of the business in 1972. The France family’s holdings go under the name of the International Speedway Corporation, a separate entity from NASCAR, yet closely aligned. The ISC owns Daytona, Talladega (the Alabama International Speedway) and 50 percent interest in tracks at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and Martinsville, Virginia. Nearly one-third of the 30-race NASCAR season is run on those tracks. The ISC has the radio rights for almost half of the Grand National races. In 1979, for the first time ever, the Daytona 500 was broadcast live on television for its entirety. The race earned the highest rating for each half-hour it was broadcast. Unlike other major sports, where players’ organizations have cashed in on television money, any profit from television at NASCAR is kept by the individual track owner, except for a small percentage which must be added to the race’s purse. 

The family’s corporation also owns 25 percent of the International Motor Sports Association, which is regarded as the successor to Sports Car Club of America as the most popular professional sanctioning body for U.S. road racing. NASCAR also sanctions a West Coast circuit, plus Modified and Late Model Sportsman racing, a sort of minor league to the Grand National circuit. All in all, NASCAR has become one big, vertically integrated bonanza for the France family. 

This was the institutional windmill that “charger” Raymond Williams took on in 1973. Driving his red, white and blue Ford Talladega emblazoned with white stars, Williams went by the nickname of Captain America. In light of France’s free enterprise accomplishments, Williams’ nickname seems most ironic. 

Raymond Williams grew up in Durham, North Carolina, between two cigarette factories. His mother worked at the American Tobacco Company and his father at Liggett & Myers. While at Durham High School, Williams was once asked by a guest speaker what he wanted to be when he grew up. He stood up and shouted, “Any damn thing but poor!” His classmates cheered. 

As he grew up, Williams learned to resent two things in life. One was authority. He once begged an assistant principal who had caught him gambling not to suspend him from school for a week. The principal was about to give in to Williams’ demands when he blurted, “Give me two weeks, I’d like to go to Florida!” 

Poverty was the other. “When I went into business I didn’t have a nickel,” he says. “I was working at Britton’s Shoe Store in Raleigh and Wright’s Machinery in Durham — I worked two full-time jobs for two years. When I first opened Farm Fresh (a drive-in convenience store he built) I worked from 7 a.m. until 12 p.m. for 27 months for seven days a week until I got it paid for.” He then opened a very successful bar near the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. 

In 1970, at age 29, Williams took some time off and went racing. He had seen his first race in Charlotte in the fall of 1969 and decided his next Grand National event would be viewed from behind a steering wheel. With the help of racing veteran Bill Seifert, Williams first appeared in the pits of Daytona International Speedway in February of 1970. “The fastest I’d ever been in a race car before Daytona was 60 or 65 miles per hour,” he said. “At Daytona I was doing 160. I never told anybody. They just thought I had raced before.” 

From the beginning, Williams was bothersome to NASCAR. He bragged to reporters about the particular ease of his entrance — bad public relations in an era when some inexperienced drivers died in horrifying crashes at Daytona. Dauntless, hard-working yet easy-going, Williams stood out from the beginning. “I’ll say one thing for Raymond,” says driver Dave Marcis, “he’s not afraid to stick his neck out and try something different.” Williams had grit, guts, talent, looks, desire and personality — all the elements to make him a star driver. In racing though, nothing can be taken for granted. Drivers with similar attributes had come and gone without notice. 

Williams became an “independent driver” — that is, one of the pilots not backed by Ford or Chrysler as “factory drivers.” In a sport so dependent on mechanical equipment, the factory-backed drivers were almost always the winners. Even when the factories dropped their overt support of racing in 1972 for public relations reasons, the upper echelon remained virtually unchanged. The winning factory drivers joined with racing teams (which owned the cars) that had commercial sponsors. At this point, the term “independent” was applied to those drivers who owned the cars they raced. The dividing line remained clear. The independents still had the same problem: not enough financial — hence mechanical — power. 

Like most young independents, Williams’ goal was to reach the top, to catch a fast ride. He was not alone. But racing is like most ventures under capitalism: it takes money to make money. Lacking the huge financial boosts from winning, Williams and the other independents counted on amateur crew members and hand-me-down parts from the leading teams to sustain themselves. The object was not necessarily to win but just to earn enough points from each of the season’s Grand National races to finish with a high standing at season’s end. (The point standings determine the national champion as well as the top 20 drivers; each top 20 driver is paid a bonus at season’s end from the point fund, which is financed by track owners.) 

Operating on limited budgets, independents often didn’t run their cars “flat out” against the better teams, because a mechanical breakdown would mean a low finish in the points and a low payout from the day’s purse. Independents often end up racing each other for the second echelon of positions and points. 

Sometimes the independent ranks serve as the stepping stone to a faster, well-financed ride with an established racing team, but not often. “When all you can afford to do is stroke,” said one independent, “the people who make the decisions don’t pay much attention to you. If good rides become available and they pass you over a time or two, then you’re stuck. That’s where you’ll stay, too. You stop dreaming after awhile.” 

Why did independents such as Elmo Langley, Ed Negro, Buddy Arrington and Coo Coo Marlin continue to race? It was a livelihood that allowed them to be their own boss. “I ain’t worked for nobody else since 1 was 10 years old,” says Arrington. But no retirement plan existed; the drivers always re-invested most of their money in equipment and had to keep racing. “You can’t use the car for a plow,” comments James Hylton.

The physical demands of racing are different from other sports, allowing careers to last much longer. But the emotional involvement is similar: competitiors don’t know when to quit. “Racing is kind of an addictive thing,” says Williams. “Once you get into it, it’s hard to get out.” 

“There aren’t too many retired drivers who are happy,” notes Wheeler. “There’s always the question of what do I do after this is over?” 

In 1970, Williams’ rookie year, James Hylton, driving as an independent, gave factory-sponsored Bobby Isaac a run for the Grand National championship. Hylton won one race and finished second in the points. But by 1972, the Grand National season had been shortened from approximately 50 races to 31, further reducing the independents’ already slim chances of winning. The change was made in an effort to nationalize the Southern-dominated sport. Superspeedways in Michigan, Texas, California, Delaware and Pennsylvania began to figure heavily in the schedule, along with the traditional Southern tracks. In effect, the new schedule gave Grand National racing a Major League aura and encouraged commercial sponsorships by large corporations. 

With more time between races, the leading teams began to perfect endurance. This meant that during a race there was less chance for the independents to advance, because fewer cars driven by the “hot dogs” would fall out. Almost all the races became either 500 laps or 500 miles, in place of the 250-lap races on the “local” tracks; this further complicated the independents’ problems of mechanical endurance. Finally, many of the races on shorter tracks were dropped from the schedule. Offering smaller purses, they had been ignored by many of the top drivers; this had allowed independents to finish higher and pick up more points. Now even that chance was gone. 

The independents, nevertheless, continued to be a crucial factor in the success of Grand National racing. Races are just not as interesting, let alone spectacular, with only seven or eight fast cars on the track. “If you didn’t have those slower cars out there,” explains Petty, “then you couldn’t tell them other cats were going so fast.” 

Ironically, the very independence of spirit these drivers shared discouraged group movements designed to improve their lot. They were “just like a pack of wolves running through the woods,” says James Hylton. “If a hunter comes along and picks off one of the wolves, the rest of the wolves don’t stop running after their prey.” 

It took serious political and economic upheaval in Grand National racing — beginning in late 1969 and lasting until 1976 — to bring about any group actions. The first such effort included all drivers; the independents’ own movement came later. 

The political problem involved the high speeds on France’s new Alabama International Speedway at Talladega. There were multiple economic problems: rising gasoline prices, general inflation and the withdrawal of factories from overt support of racing. 

The Professional Drivers’ Association, secretly formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the spring of 1969, became a political force when all the Grand National drivers save two refused to race at the first event on France’s 2.66-mile behemoth of blazing speed, Talladega. They refused to race for safety reasons: in tests, tires had repeatedly torn apart because of the track’s capability for such high speeds. Although the drivers maintained their solidarity for that one race at Talladega, the PDA eventually folded. Richard Petty and Bobby Allison, among others, had formed the leadership of the Association. They had made substantial donations and expressed interest in a re-alignment of purses to help out the lower finishers. But ranks were constantly broken by those same low finishers. According to a former officer of the PDA, France was able to buy out the allegiance of some “needy” independent drivers, dividing the independents from the “hot dogs,” disrupting the organization’s attempt to build purses, improve safety and provide a retirement plan. 

France prevented a repeat of the Talladega walkout by requiring a carburetor restrictor plate to slow speeds there. In 1971, he decided to invoke a carburetor restrictor plate in all races. (Speeds were approaching 200 m.p.h. on the large superspeedways.) Because different size plates were required for different engines in the various makes of cars, it became difficult, if not impossible, to administer the rule fairly. In late 1973, France ended the plate controversy (and anticipated the gas shortage) with a rule change limiting engine sizes to 350 cubic inches of displacement. This created a particular hardship on the financially strapped independents, since it forced them to buy new and expensive engines before the 1974 season. Besides that, the independents faced the end of 1973 knowing they would have to travel all over the country to race the next season, just as inflation was getting worse and gas prices were soaring. 

Meanwhile, the auto factories had pulled out of overt support for racing in 1971. “They gave all their mechanical pieces to the leading teams,” recalls Charlotte’s Wheeler. “There was a great financial crisis from ’72 through ’76. Even the top teams had trouble keeping their heads above water. They didn’t start getting the big sponsors until around 1976. The afterbirth of the strike at Talladega and the factory pullout sent all of Grand National racing into serious mental depression.” 

The withdrawal of factory money, the example of the PDA’s group action, and France’s rule juggling and schedule changing all helped create an atmosphere in which the independents decided to join together without the blessing of NASCAR. Leading the way was Williams, whose belief in group action had been spurred by the ill-fated PDA. 

The focus of Williams’ urge to win had gradually shifted from beating the competition on the track to beating those organizers who appeared responsible for the ongoing disadvantages faced by independents. 

“I joined the PDA just as soon as I started racing,” says Williams. “I went to the first meeting in ’70 before I had ever been in a race. I thought it was the thing to do. I looked up to these guys all my life. If they had said, ‘Let’s go rob a bank,’ I’d have been right there with em.” 

“I had been brainwashed from the first day. We were going to form a union and get something done. I thought after a while that I was going to be the savior. I told the press I felt like Don Quixote, but don’t quote me on that because I didn’t think too many people in racing knew who he was. 

“I was crying for all those people,” Williams remembers. “I can’t think of anybody in the world who works harder for more hours and makes less money than racers.” 

The idea of having an “Independent 250” race was first aired publicly in a meeting at a beer hall and pool room in Darlington just before the 1973 Southern 500. “We was talking about money,” says Williams. “I said what we ought to do is go get our cars and go up the road and rent ourselves a track and run the same day as the Southern 500. In my mind, it was going to be a union-type deal. We were stretched for money.” 

That same day at the track NASCAR officials told Williams to get his car out of line before qualifying, adding that NASCAR was going to revoke his license. “We walked on down the track and I told them that I would have to have a lawyer and that I would sue. Ten minutes later they came back and said, ‘Forget it. Go ahead and qualify.’” 

It was no surprise to Williams that NASCAR officials had found out about the meeting of the independents so quickly. “Bill France knew about everything that was happening,” he comments. “Bill France owns more than a few race cars, or he has super mortgages on them. The independents driving in those cars told him what was going on.” 

Williams’ pitch to his fellow drivers was the same one France had made in the formation of NASCAR. “I told the other drivers we would make all kinds of money and I really thought we would. It was designed not to hurt NASCAR — it was just for us.” 

But NASCAR didn’t see it that way. An insider later said France ranked the “Independent 250” with the Talladega uprising and Curtis Turner’s attempt to start his own racing circuit in the early ’60s. At a time when NASCAR was trying to woo back corporate sponsorships, an attempt by the independents to start their own circuit posed a direct threat to France’s control of racing in the South. In essence, it was a palace revolt. And behind it the monarch sensed the prospect of a competing circuit which would link together the independents and the Late Model Sportsman stars who ran on the short tracks Friday and Saturday nights. Bobby Allison predicted, “Raymond Williams will never finish another Grand National race.” 

There was little NASCAR could do, however, between October 21, when Williams got commitments from the other drivers at the last Grand National race of the season at Rockingham, and the “Independent 250” on November 25. To oppose the race publicly would only increase the attendance, and crowd size was a critical factor to all involved. 

“I worked my butt off preparing for that race,” says Williams. “I worked day and night for weeks. My phone bill was horrendous.” He rented Trico Speedway at Rougemont, North Carolina, for the event. He arranged for insurance, hauled racing fuel in from Rockingham by the barrel, secured a tire representative and initiated publicity with a press luncheon in nearby Durham. He drove all over the North Carolina and Virginia Piedmont nailing up posters. 

The rules were simple: qualify Saturday, race Sunday; Grand National cars and independent drivers only; “run what ya bring.” This meant no carburetor restrictor plates would be used. There were hardly any restrictions at all, for that matter. NASCAR had a stick, for example, to measure the distance of a car’s chassis from the ground. (It’s an aerodynamic advantage to have a low-slung car and thus it’s regulated by rules.) The drivers asked Williams what kind of stick he was going to use. He pointed to a bump on pit road and said, “If you can drive over that, you can race.” 

A festive atmosphere prevailed the night before race, as the drivers gathered at Williams’ bar 20 miles down the road in Chapel Hill. “Everybody got drunk on beer,” said Williams. “It was a fun thing, it really was.” The drivers decided that the purse — to come directly from gate receipts after Williams’ expenses were taken out — would be split on a percentage basis. 

The other topics of conversation that night were the weather and what kind of turnout to expect. A good crowd could mean another race that same winter. Jabe Thomas, a 43-year-old veteran of eight Grand National seasons, summed up the drivers’ attitude: “I feel like I’m committed to run flat out and I believe everybody else feels the same way. And if that’s the case, it will be the first time in years we’ve done that.” 

They had hoped for a crowd of 5,000 to 6,000, but at most 2,000 people showed up on a cool, slate-grey day. Veteran NASCAR track announcer Bill Melton, always a friend of the independents, stood in the ramshackle scoring stand overlooking the three-eighths-mile paved bowl, surrounded by a crooked and bent steel guard rail with a front straight lined by a wall of oak boards. He called out the names of 20 drivers who had taken the green flag nearly 4,000 times on the Grand National circuit: Dave Marcis, James Hylton, Cecil Gordon, Raymond Williams, Bill Champion, Henley Grey, Richard Brown, Elmo Langley, Ed Negre, Jabe Thomas, J.D. McDuffie, Bill Seifert, Walter Ballard, Richard Childress, Dean Dalton, Wendell Scott, Earl Brooks, Bill Hollar, Charlie Roberts and Bill Dennis. 

Only Langley, Hylton and Scott had ever won a Grand National race; when the drivers started their engines and rumbled around the paved banks in their brightly painted cars before the start, few of them were thinking about the size of the crowd. “Everybody there felt like they could win; that about made the race. You could tell everybody was running to win,” says Williams. “It wasn’t like a NASCAR race.” 

The green flag dropped promptly at 1 p.m. 

Beeeeooooowwwwww! 

Raleigh News and Observer writer Gerald Martin described the race like this: “What the crowd saw was the old-timers, Langley and Champion, careening side by side, lap after lap, around the high-banked, three-eighths-mile asphalt oval, personal pride dictating that neither give an inch. 

“There was Ed Negre, the lumberjack from Kelso, Washington, barreling off the fourth turn, with his foot in the carburetor, his Dodge smoking and everybody wondering when it would come unglued. 

“‘I don’t know what the crowd thought,’ Negre said, ‘but from where I was sitting, it was a great show. I had the best seat in the house at 90 m.p.h.’ 

“Marcis and Bill Dennis started the race with a classic duel. Dennis riding Marcis’ bumper lap after lap, looking for a gap to squeeze through. He never found it. The engine in his Mercury broke while he challenged. 

“Then came Elmo, who counts two wins among almost 500 races he has entered since 1956. He slid through the field like an eel on a binge, edged alongside Marcis and after a three-lap duel went to the front. . . .”

The eventual winner was a young man from Horse Shoe, North Carolina — 32-year-old Cecil Gordon, who pulled away from Marcis in his Chevrolet at the finish. In the makeshift winner’s cricle, a happy and relieved Gordon clutched a trophy to his chest and declared, “The money doesn’t concern me. I won a race today.” 

It was Gordon’s first and last “Grand National” victory; he won $500. Despite the small purse and some arguments about how the race had been scored, the drivers all felt something had been achieved. “We done it and there ain’t been a better race all year,” remarked Thomas. 

Unfortunately, the “Independent 250” had failed where it could least afford to — at the gate. “It was a good race run at a bad time of the year,” says Marcis. “It looked like it was going to rain, too. There was not a lot of publicity and the fans thought the race wouldn’t be that good because the big drivers were not there.” 

Others blamed the gas shortage and the track’s poor location. “If we had had the race at Hickory (North Carolina), Southside (a track near Richmond) or South Boston (Virginia) we would have knocked them dead,” says Williams. “But that’s stuff you look back on and say if. . . .  I still think it was a success. It gave those guys who always run in the back a feeling of what it’s like to race to win.” 

For some drivers — Scott, Brooks, Thomas, Champion, Dennis and Seifert — the “Independent 250” was a last hurrah. Dennis, a former Grand National rookie of the year who won three straight Permatex 300s, now sells used cars in Richmond, Virginia, and races a Late Model Sportsman on weekends. “I used to believe in the American Dream,” he says, “but I guess I don’t anymore.” 

Gordon, Hylton, Langley, Negre, McDuffie and Childress continued as Grand National independents. Marcis joined the esteemed team of Harry Hyde in 1975 and eventually won four races. Williams himself never returned to stock car racing full-time. In the spring of 1974, determined to raise enough money to stage a second “Independent 250,” Williams leased Trico Speedway to promote Late Model Sportsman races. He financed the effort by selling his racing equipment. 

“When I had the first Grand National race,” he says, “I had a truck, a trailer, two cars and no engines (because of the rule change). A year later I didn’t have no trailer, no truck, no car, no tools, no nothing. I was history. I was historied in 24 weeks.” 

Location was once again a problem. Like the promoters at Trico Speedway who had preceded him, Williams could not attract enough big-name Late Model circuit stars to his track, and local drivers did not draw enough people to make money. (The Grand National independents owned no Late Model cars and thus could not help out.) 

One long-time insider of racing in the Piedmont claims NASCAR officials gave the neighboring tracks an assist in their competition with Williams by arranging for appearance money. But Mike Poston, a track steward for Southside Speedway for 21 years, says such a move by NASCAR was unlikely. “NASCAR don’t give ya nothing,” he observes. “They’re not in the business of giving anything away.” 

Williams’ plans for staging a second “Independent 250” faded after he had sat out the Grand National season and lost all his equipment. Instead, he became concerned with returning to NASCAR racing. He began to regret having ever staged the first independent race. “You can’t fight City Hall,” he says, “and, in racing, NASCAR is City Hall. I should have absolutely kept my mouth shut.” 

This reversal by Williams illustrates how independents’ convictions often become subordinate to the desire to continue racing. “I should have gone to Bill France and seen if I could have helped him and if he could have helped me,” he says now. But it was too late for Williams to get on France’s good side. As Bobby Allison had prophesied, Williams would never finish another Grand National race. 

The last race Williams promoted at Trico was cancelled by a September thunderstorm. “I was holding a chain, getting ready to close the gate,” he relates, “and lightning hit that chain link fence and knocked the living shit out of me.” Lying on his back in the orange mud ofTrico, Williams decided to quit race promotion. It was just two months before the first anniversary of the “Independent 250.” When Dave Marcis heard this story, he laughed and said, “That was Bill France getting him right there.” 

The most effective independent group action came after Williams left the Grand National scene. Again, the dire need for money and an outspoken leader — this time James Hylton — brought the independents together. In the spring of 1976 an independent strike was said to be in the offing. Hylton was able to convince Bill France, Jr., however, that drivers needed more money than was available in the purses, and France agreed to help them. “Plan C’’ was formulated, making more money available through special purse bonuses and guaranteed appearance money for all non-winning top 20 drivers. 

Still, the big race winners can earn almost $100,000 in appearance money in one season, while Plan C racers make only $15,000. When the negotiations started, Hylton was asking for $45,000 in appearance money per year, $1,500 a race, or “half of what the big guys were getting.” In effect, Plan C allowed the independents to keep up with inflation, but did little to alter their relative status in racing. 

Plan C is regarded by many track owners as welfare, although they don’t consider the “hot dog” drivers’ larger bonuses as giveaways. The philosophy of a man making his own way, always at the heart of Grand National racing, remains intact. In the beginning, racing was seen as a testing ground for the product of a man’s own work. It symbolized pride, industry, determination, courage, intelligence and, above all, independence. To some, it represented a last frontier for the individual. 

In the mind of Bill France, Sr., it still does. Remembering his own part as a driver, France says, “I enjoyed seeing people come to the races with more money and better equipment than I had. I enjoyed beating people like that.” Some 30 years later, that is easier said than done. The cost difference in 1979 between an independent’s equipment and that of a top driver is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The difference in crew is four or five full-time members. Independents may own two cars; most top teams have four or five at their disposal. Richard Petty’s crew works in a garage big enough to be a tobacco warehouse; less than 50 miles away J. D. McDuffie works in a two-car shed of corrugated tin held up with two-by-fours. McDuffie works there from morning until night, except Sundays. “I’m glad when we get to the racetrack because I can’t work on the car at night,” he says. “I can go back to the motel and get some rest.” 

No doubt, the great divide was the factories’ involvement in the early ’60s. At that time, the formula for success in Grand National stock car racing became the combination of a corporate sponsor, a factory team and a driver. Three times since then — with the PDA, the “Independent 250” and the threatened strike in 1976 — the independents have been part of a group action to close the money gap between themselves and top races. Each time they have failed to improve their chances of winning. 

“The battle of the independents is going down the drain,” said Hylton in a recent interview. “Now there are several new teams backed by wealthy individuals who are just in racing for fun. They show up with a boatload of money, and each new car that shows up with money behind it just pushes us one more farther back. “We work on such a low budget, not one of us could afford to get out of line now. I would say that if one of us started talking to France about how things were, he’d break that driver’s back before he could even step out of line. If you had a meeting, only seven drivers would show up, and they’d be too scared to do anything anyway.” 

“You’ll never get all the drivers together,” agrees Childress. “It’s just not the nature of the guys.” 

But it’s not the nature of the independents to quit, either. Jabe Thomas was son Ronnie’s crew chief as the second-generation independent won the 1978 Grand National rookie of the year title. Despite the fact that independents have won only two races since 1972, Negre’s son Norman, Marlin’s son Sterlin and Arrington’s son Joey will soon be driving the family cars, backed by small commercial sponsorships. When they get on the Grand National tracks, they’ll be racing against Richard Petty’s son Kyle and the young stars who recently jumped from the Late Model Sportsman circuit to some of those new rides backed by wealthy individuals. A new generation will be participating in this symbolic, and ironic, re-enactment of the American Dream every racing Sunday, even though the odds will remain about the same. 

“I’m always dreaming of being a winner,” says Childress. “That may be living in a dream world, but that’s what most of the guys are doing. If you work hard enough, for long enough, you’ll eventually win one.”