By Zane Miller

In the almost 80-year long history of NASCAR racing, no other driver has been connected to the operation longer than Hershel McGriff. The native of Portland, Oregon first became interested in competing in NASCAR following a chance encounter with founder Bill France in 1950, which led to a racing career spanning at least the next 68 years. As one driver put it, “I think Moses even raced against Hershel McGriff.”

Born on December 14th, 1927, McGriff showed interest in going fast before even reaching grade school. At age seven, he obtained a goat from his uncle and used the artiodactyl to pull him around his family’s property on a cart. His penchant for driving at any opportunity continued to blossom, as by the time he turned 15 years old he not only owned his own car, but had also worked as a train operator, ambulance driver, milk delivery driver and a bus driver for the church his father served at as a pastor. The heavy workload took its toll on McGriff’s classwork, and he decided to drop out of school sometime around eighth grade.

McGriff certainly had an impressive amount of automobile experience given his age, which came in handy as he ran in his first organized race in 1945. Now, many auto races at the time were set up by track owners themselves rather than a sanctioning body, so official records are hard to come by. That being said, according to McGriff, he finished his debut race 12th in the 40-car field, driving his dad’s 1940 Hudson. He continued to race in various events on half-mile and short dirt tracks around the Pacific Northwest, culminating in a 1949 campaign in which he won eight of the 12 races entered. Adding credence to this claim is what happened when McGriff took part in the inaugural Carrera Panamericana in May of 1950.

The Carrera Panamericana was a six-day long rally car event which essentially entailed racing the entire length of Mexico, starting in the city of Ciudad Juarez (a few miles south of El Paso, Texas) and finishing in Ciudad Cuauhtemoc, near the Guatemalan border. Although McGriff would have a co-driver in Ray Elliott, who had served as his crew chief the year before, and the race would have breaks to allow the drivers to sleep, the field of nearly 200 participants were in for a grueling week ahead. On top of that, McGriff drove the same Oldsmobile that he would be using in the race from Portland to Ciudad Juarez, making for an exhausting journey before the race even started (keep in mind this was also before the US Interstate Highway System was developed). However, McGriff was about to receive the biggest break of his career.

Also competing in that year’s Carrera Panamericana was none other than Bill France himself, the founder of NASCAR with his descendants in charge of the operation to this day. While he had started the NASCAR Strictly Stock Division (now NASCAR Cup Series) a year prior, France was still a driver at heart and sought to add to his already impressive list of career accomplishments with a win at the cross-country battle royale.

In case you were wondering, safety for the event was not set at a high standard for the competitors nor spectators, as the drivers not only had limited protective equipment but also faced steep cliffs and jagged rock-filled embankments should they go off course. Meanwhile, crowds were allowed to congregate dangerously close to the racing surface. Two drivers, Jesus Reyes Molina of Peru and Enrique Hachmeister of Guatemala, lost their lives in separate accidents, while one spectator was also killed during the event.

The tag team of McGriff and Elliott jumped out as the favorites, as the pair took a commanding lead. France was impressed by McGriff’s skills behind the wheel and met with him at some point during the week. France pitched his new series to the Oregon native, but one upcoming race France was particularly excited about was the Southern 500 at the newly built 1.25-mile Darlington Raceway in northeastern South Carolina. Though McGriff was previously unaware of the new track and had not yet raced on a track of that size, he took him up on the invitation to run in the race that September.

McGriff and Elliott endured the treacherous conditions across the Mexican landscape, but at the end of the sixth and final day they would be the ones to lift the trophy as winners of the inaugural Carrera Panamericana, outlasting fellow Americans Thomas Deal and Sam Cresap by over a full minute (France’s car DNF’d due to a broken radiator). Unfortunately, I was unable to find much information regarding what happened to Elliott after this race, except for the fact that he competed in what would be the final original Carrera Panamericana in 1954 and finished 27th with co-driver Edward Stark. However, there was no doubt where McGriff was headed next.

Racing in the very same Oldsmobile 88 coupe that he used to win in Mexico, McGriff made the trek to the Palmetto State for the inaugural Southern 500 and his Cup Series debut, which would be run on September 4th, 1950. Since he didn’t have his own pit crew, he stopped by a gas station in the nearby town of Florence where he was able to convince a handful of employees to service his car. McGriff would get his money’s worth out of his rag-tag pit crew, as the 500-miler quickly went down in history as being notoriously harsh on tires.

Many teams severely underestimated the amount of tire wear the brand-new pavement would create, with the drivers mainly having a dirt track racing background rather than asphalt. This led to a number of unscheduled pit stops for most of the field, but Long Beach, California’s Johnny Mantz foresaw this issue and planned accordingly before the race. Mantz brought truck tires instead of normal racing tires to the track, making him much slower in qualifying as he started 43rd in the 75-car field. However, the improved durability of the truck tires paid off on race day, as he took the lead on lap 50 and never looked back, winning by nine laps for his first and only Cup Series win. For McGriff, who “never heard so many tires squeal in all [his] life”, he ended the Labor Day classic 26 laps down, but still finished a solid ninth for his first career top-10 in Cup.

McGriff ran his Oldsmobile in five more Cup races in 1951, though the most notable of these was none other than the second running of Darlington’s Southern 500. The race featured 82 drivers in the starting lineup, a record which has never been broken, with McGriff taking the fifth spot on the grid. This allowed him to earn his first-ever lap led in NASCAR as he got by Jesse James Taylor for the lead on lap 12, but was unable to stay there long. Regardless, he improved on his career-best finish, being scored 10 laps down in fourth behind winner Herb Thomas. McGriff ran even more sparingly at the Cup Series level in both 1952 and 1953, though the May 1953 race at Raleigh Speedway saw him have his best shot at winning to that point. He took the lead on lap 95 and led the way for just over 100 laps, before a wheel bearing failed and put him out of the race, handing the lead and eventual win to Fonty Flock. However, the race is most remembered for Fonty’s brother, Tim, being forced to pit when his monkey, Jocko Flocko, that he had ride along in the car became agitated and started attacking the driver. Neither the monkey nor Flock were seriously hurt in the incident, but Jocko Flocko did not ride with Flock during a race again.

To this point, McGriff had only used his own cars in Cup races, but that changed during the 1954 season when he struck a deal to drive for Frank Christian, husband of NASCAR’s first female driver Sara Christian. This also meant that McGriff would have the opportunity to run the majority of remaining 23 races, rather than just a few starts here and there. Using Christian’s #14 Oldsmobile for most of the season, the arrangement immediately starting paying dividends. He scored a third-place finish at the same Raleigh Speedway he nearly won at the year before, then finished second to Curtis Turner at Columbia Speedway in June. Shortly after, McGriff strung together three top-10 finishes with a seventh at Hickory Speedway (now Hickory Motor Speedway), a fifth at Monroe County Fairgrounds and a third at Williams Grove Speedway. With speed like this, it was only a matter of time before McGriff found himself in victory lane.

On August 22nd, the series made their way out to the San Francisco Bay Area for a rare west coast race, as 41 drivers would take on Bay Meadows Speedway in San Mateo. While this was the debut Cup Series race at the one-mile dirt track, this fit right into McGriff’s wheelhouse as he not only was back on the west coast where he grew up, but gained much of his expertise while racing on dirt. Starting from the pole, McGriff successfully held off all challengers for nearly all of the event. Late in the going, fellow Portlander Bill Amick started closing in on McGriff despite being the only other remaining car on the lead lap. However, McGriff’s red Oldsmobile proved too strong to overcome and he fended off Amick for his first career Cup Series victory. There is a discrepancy as to whether he led every lap of the race or all but one lap, but most sources indicate that he indeed led wire-to-wire.

From there, McGriff was nearly unstoppable for the final two months of the season. He backed up his first win with a second-place finish at Corbin Speedway, though an engine failure robbed him of a possible good run at Darlington after starting third. The series returned to McGriff’s bread-and-butter with a dirt track in Macon, Georgia known as Central City Speedway. He started on the outside front row and tailed behind pole winner Tim Flock, who was only racing on a part-time basis this season. In the late stages of the race, however, Flock’s car fell off the pace, putting McGriff in the catbird seat. He made no mistake in the final 20 laps, going on to win what would be the final race held at Central City Speedway as it was torn down two years later.

The next race on the calendar saw the drivers visit yet another half-mile dirt oval, which was just fine as far as McGriff was concerned. He started on the pole at Charlotte’s Southern States Fairgrounds and whooped the field, winning the event by a full lap. Unfortunately, lap leader data for this race was lost to time, but it is certainly possible that he led every lap in this race too. Just two days later, McGriff tackled the infamous Langhorne Speedway in Pennsylvania (yes, the races were held on the same weekend despite being over 500 miles apart), where he collected a third-place finish as the last car on the lead lap.

After a respectable ninth at Memphis-Arkansas Speedway, McGriff nearly won at Martinsville Speedway (then a dirt track) but settled for second behind winner Lee Petty. In the season finale at North Wilkesboro Speedway (also a dirt track at the time) on October 24th, McGriff started on the pole for the fifth time in 1954, but didn’t even get to lead a lap before being overtaken by fellow west coast racer Dick Rathmann. McGriff finally got the lead back from Rathmann on lap 85, but still had to contend with Buck Baker and Herb Thomas for the victory. He outlasted both in the final laps for his fourth victory of the season. Tragically, the race was marred by the death of Inglewood, California’s Lou Figaro, who lost his life in a late crash. This would also be McGriff’s last win at the Cup Series level.

Despite missing a large chunk of the beginning of the season, McGriff still rebounded to finish a career-high sixth in the final standings. However, instead of following up the breakout campaign with an even stronger championship run, his racing career came to an abrupt halt. At this time in his life, racing was not his highest priority as he instead devoted more time to the lumber company that he had started back in Oregon. Feeling satisfied with what he had accomplished in NASCAR, he stepped away from the sport, working at his business and raising his family for the next 11 years. This hiatus came to an end in 1965, as he dabbled with racing part-time in the NASCAR West Series, which would later become known as the ARCA Series West.

Part 2 coming soon!

NASCAR / carrera panamericana

The Career of Hershel McGriff (Part 1)

The Career of Hershel McGriff (Part 1)

The Career of Hershel McGriff (Part 1)