Here’s some good old stuff… What is now NSS opened originally in the Spring of 1967 as Daytona Raceway and it was dirt (for about three months)…
The dust was so bad that, as you can see by the first story, they had plenty of trouble… The track was paved and re-opened in the fall with a 200 lap LM race… Before that race, they ran a six-cyl. race which was won by Donnie Tanner in a car owned by Billy Wade… In the 200 lap race, the track tore up real good… I think Don’l Burkhalter blew so many tires he had to give up… Larry Flynn used his dirst track experience to win over Ray Gardner… Since the LM field was a bit short, the sixes were allowed to start this race too if they wanted and Tanner wound up finishing third in the 200…
When the track re-opened in 1968, the name was changed to New Smyrna Speedway… Once lights were put in, they switched to running Sunday nights with ONE class - only Late Models… Note the speeds they were turning back then!!! Dave McGinnis with the track record of a shade over 21 seconds!!!
Dave thanks for the post. I had no idea Dad ran their that early. He said Snodgrass wanted to buy motor after race and he said the place was rough.