April 16, 1961
“Gwyn Staley 400”
Top 5 finishers.....
Junior Johnson recorded yet another pole. His qualifying time was 23.52 (95.660mph). The time was 0.57 seconds better than the previous track record. Once again, Johnson led all the laps he ran—62, but it was far short of the scheduled distance of 400 laps. Transmission problems force him out early. From there, in his NWS debut, Fred Lorenzen led the next 61 laps until engine problems removed him from the race. Curtis Turner also led 56 laps before experiencing problems. The three mentioned drivers combined to lead 179 laps in the day.
The other 221 laps were led by the race winner, the 1960 Driver of the Year and Grand National Champion—Rex White. It was his second consecutive Grand National win at the speedway. White started the race from the second position. One of White’s funny, but yet scary stories came while testing at Daytona's Beach Course—“We were testing the car and I kept telling the owner it was missing,” said White. “So he said, you go back around and come by me wide open. I didn't think about it at the time where he was going to be sitting. So I came by him wide open, and just as I got by him, I realized I was hitting the diamonds in the road where they tell you to shut off going into the south turn. So, when I went into that sand in the corner, I was all out of shape, and sliding sideways. There was a car parked right in the middle of the turn, with two elderly people next to it. The lady was on the other side of the car going to the bathroom. As I slid by them, I seen her pulling her britches up. I thought I was going to run over them. It scared me as much as them, because I was afraid I was going to hit them. That's a true story. We all laughed about it, and I even talked with the couple afterwards."
Another story from Daytona goes to the second place finisher. In 1960, Tommy Irwin was involved in a collision and spun his Ford T-Bird on the backstretch. At the time, there was no inside retaining wall. Irwin ended up going nose first into Lake Lloyd in the infield of the 2.5 mile track. Irwin was able to get out of his car and swim to safety. Tommy Irwin started the race in 6th with a qualifying time of 24.14 seconds and finished the Gwyn Staley 400 two laps behind White.
Coming in 3rd was Richard Petty. Petty’s qualifying time of 23.94 also bettered the previous record. It would be his second of many career top five finishes at the track. Petty earned $900 for his efforts. That was as much as the past NWS winners made just a couple of years prior.
Running in 4th, ten laps behind the winner was Fireball Roberts in a Pontiac owned by Smokey Yunick. Roberts started the race in the 19th position. Roberts did not put up a qualifying time. The 15 spots he improved during the race would be more than any other driver that day.
A qualifying time of 24.19 landed Johnny Allen a starting spot of 7th and even though he crashed out on his 387th lap, he still finished the race in 5th place. Johnny Allen finished 36th in the 1961 Volunteer 500 at Bristol. Actually, Allen—driving in relief of Jack Smith—was in the driver's seat of the car that was first to complete 500 laps in the speedway's inaugural race. Smith was credited with the win with Allen running in relief. "Jack Smith was very good to me that day," Allen said of the inaugural Bristol race run on July 30, 1961. "He shared the purse with me, and that was a lot of money for me. And thanks to that race, I was able to get the Holly Farms car to drive the next year." In that car at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., Johnny Allen captured his only official victory at stock car racing's top division.
The Gwyn Staley race was all about attrition. 25 cars entered the race and only 12 were running at the finish. The first 400 lap race was run in 3 hours and 11 seconds. There were 6 cautions for a total of 33 laps. A reported 12,500 showed up that day. For those who purchased race programs, I’m sure they were pleasantly surprised when they saw the insert with the starting lineup. Although he didn’t run in qualifying, Tim Flock was listed as a probable entry. Unfortunately, that never happened.