Walt Wimer sent me this…
This is Dick Bailey of Grove City, PA with the 1958 Pontiac that he raced in the final NASCAR Grand National race on the beach at Daytona in 1958. He got the car from Bauman Pontiac in Wilkinsburg (Pittsburgh) drove it to Daytona, finished 20th and drove it back home to western PA. Then he drove it all summer before finally selling it!! Bailey finished 33 of the 39 laps around the tricky 4.1 beach/road course and won all of $75!!! Paul Goldsmith won the race in a Smokey Yunick '58 Pontiac, followed by Curtis Turner in a Ford and Jack Smith in another Pontiac. Goldsmith “only” collected $4,550 for the big win!! Bailey didn’t tell me so, but I wonder if he picked 5 for the car number since he had finished 5th in points so many times!!! Bailey came back to Daytona in 1959 to run the very first Modified race at the Daytona International Speedway with a 1938 Chevy coupe owned by Lawrence Mariani of the Pittsburgh area. The blue & orange Universal Oil Co. #11 was a real looker, with Bailey finishing 12th, running 67 of the 80 laps. Banjo Matthews won the race in the Mel Joseph #49 over Perk Brown and Curtis Turner, who was running the Montgomery #55 Chevy coupe out of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Banjo was in a '56 Ford, Brown in a '54 Ford while Turner had the only coupe bodied car in the top five. That was the beginning of the end for the coupes at Daytona!!! I don’t know for sure, but Bailey may have been the only western PA driver to have run on both the beach/road course and DIS!! Gus Linder & Don Dahle both ran the early Modified races at DIS, but I am not sure if either of them ever ran on the beach.
Dick Joslin also ran a 1956 Dodge convertible at the beach twice in 1956. After the July race, he brought the car back to Orlando, cleaned it and had it re-painted and his wife drove it around O-town for two more years… Now that was STOCK CAR Racing!!!
