NASCAR Retrospective: 1956 Grand National at Merced, California
The Mighty and Now Beloved Chrysler 300s of the Fifties Failed To Win Over NASCAR, Bill France, or the Series' Southern Fans.
Millionaire and somewhat eccentric northerner Carl Kiekhaefer turned NASCAR upon its ear in 1955 after buying his way into the series with the mighty Chrysler C-300 and 300B, a pair of beautiful Hemi-powered juggernauts that dominated the tracks and swept up 45 of 90 Grand National races over two seasons.
Although drivers Tim Flock, Buck Baker, and Herb Thomas tittered with glee as they pocketed the prize money, the powerful Hemis did not sit well with the southern NASCAR establishment, who clearly viewed the wealthy Kiekhaefer as a northern interloper intruding upon their cultural treasure. Kiekhaefer, who made his immense fortune by devising the Mercury outboard motor, did not suffer the snobbery and set out to crush his competition.
Beginning with a win by driver Buck Baker at Atlanta on March 23, 1956, Kiekhaefer’s entries triggered a remarkable stretch of racing performances that resulted in sixteen consecutive victories, a team owner record that likely will stand for NASCAR eternity. The Chrysler 300B ended its wondrous run on June 3 at a rural half-mile dirt oval speedway located in the California Central Valley town of Merced (by coincidence, our own hometown NASCAR track). Herb Thomas (300-B Carl Kiekhaefer Chrysler) held off Harold Hardesty’s 1956 Chevrolet in a hundred lap NGN event for his forty-eighth and final Grand National career victory.
Trouble shortly thereafter bubbled up for Kiekhafer and his powerful cars. Flock quit his team in a snit soon after the NASCAR West Coast tour, and upon the series’ return to the South, bristling fans began to hiss and jeer Kiekhaefer and his entries despite their racing success (Buck Baker spoke on the record about his seething anger regarding his treatment by fans after his 1956 racing victories). In the following 1957 season, Big Bill France, anxious to rid his NASCAR franchise of the ‘northern intruder’, implemented a series of technical rule changes that utterly debilitated the mighty Chrysler 300s. Kiekhaefer battled with France over the unfavorable treatment for a brief spell before exiting the sport out of fear that the negative publicity would harm his own Mercury Outboards enterprise.
