Final Champ

Jack Smith receives victory congratulations in the early fifties from his mother, Montare, his sister Edna and children Jackie and Gloria. Photo courtesy the Weyman Milam family

The NSCRA’s final season, in 1951, was completed even though Bruton Smith and Sam Nunis had left the sanction as promoters.

“I finished second in points for two years in a row, then finally in ’51 I took the season title, then it was all over.  But we had fun for a few years.  Our association was organized by Bill and Weyman Milam out of Atlanta.  Good competition with Billy Carden, Curtis Turner, Buddy Shuman, Ed Samples and the like.  Bill France tried to run us aground, but the Milams hung in there throughout ’51 season before we scuttled the ship.  Some of us went ahead and finished the year with NASCAR,” Jack said.  “But you have to remember we were running modifieds under the NSCRA.  When we went with France, we raced the stocks, which were much more fragile, such as a spindle or wheel, since it was stock.  So if you drove like you wanted to win, you would likely break something.”

Smith looks over his wrecked car at Darlington in 1950. Note the bandaged arm. It took 25 years before all the broken glass was totally removed.

After Smith left the NSCRA, he ran a few races for NASCAR in ’51 and still finished in the top 40.

In relation to breaking something, I asked Jack about his worst accident.

“Well,” he said, “I guess the one that gave me the biggest problem was Darlington in ’50 when Curtis Turner and I tangled and I ended up upside down with an arm full of stitches.  Bad thing about that was up until 1975 I was still having problems with that arm and doctors were still taking broken glass out of it.  They put over a hundred stitches in it in ’50 and had to keep opening it up to pull more glass out for the next quarter of a century, but I think they finally got it all.”