Forty of the 45 scheduled races ran on dirt, and Tim Flock won the title by 1,508 points over Buck Baker.
The 1955 NASCAR Grand National Series was the ninth season of what is now the NASCAR Cup Series. It ran from 7 November 1954 to 30 October 1955 over 45 scheduled races, with Tim Flock winning the title ahead of Buck Baker.
The 1955 NASCAR Grand National Series season ran from November 1954 to October 1955 and was the ninth year of the championship now called the Cup Series. Tim Flock won the title with 9,596 points, finishing 1,508 ahead of Buck Baker, and most of the 45 scheduled races were run on dirt.
Most of the field were first-generation racers. Many had served in World War II before they turned to stock cars, and few had relatives already in the sport. The average car made about 230 horsepower, roughly 620 horsepower less than the cars that raced in the 2009 Sprint Cup season.
The generation that would later gain fame through family connections, with a father or older brother already racing, did not arrive until about a decade afterwards.
When did the 1955 NASCAR season run?
The season began on 7 November 1954 and ended on 30 October 1955. That made it an eleven-month campaign, one month longer than the ten-month format used today, and the calendar left room for the customary two-month silly season between mid-November and mid-February.
Because the campaign spanned two calendar years, the championship was settled in the autumn of 1955 after a schedule that began in late 1954. The first race took place at Tri-City Speedway in High Point, North Carolina, and the final race on the list was at Orange Speedway in Hillsboro, North Carolina.
Forty dirt races, speeds held low, and a champion with 18 wins and a 1,508-point margin.
How many races were on the 1955 schedule?
The schedule listed 45 events across the South, the Northeast and the West, with one entry still marked TBD. Forty of those races were run on dirt, a surface that kept speeds low and the racing relatively safe for the drivers.
Several venues were fairgrounds or rodeo grounds, including the Tucson Rodeo Grounds in Arizona, the Monroe County Fairgrounds in Rochester, New York, and the New York State Fair in Syracuse. Those dates sat alongside Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, while Martinsville Speedway in Virginia appeared twice on the calendar.
Dirt racing had a practical effect. Lower speeds on dirt helped keep the action safe, long before the Car of Tomorrow, and paved ovals did not become the expected norm for about 20 years. The later move to paved tracks brought dangerous speeds, which pushed research towards making cars safer to drive rather than faster.
Who won the most races in 1955?
Tim Flock was the most successful driver of the year, with 18 wins. Lee Petty finished with six victories and Junior Johnson with five, while Buck Baker, Herb Thomas, Jim Paschal and Fonty Flock each recorded three wins across the calendar.
Flock also led the top-five list, with 32 finishes in the top five, the most of any driver. Only nine drivers recorded a win that year. Speedy Thompson took two of those wins, and Danny Letner took a single race.
What were the final championship standings?
Tim Flock finished the season on 9,596 points, 1,508 ahead of Buck Baker on 8,088. Lee Petty was third with 7,194 points, and Bob Welborn, Herb Thomas and Junior Johnson completed the top six. The table below compares the leaders on points, wins and top-five finishes.
| Driver | Points | Wins | Top-five finishes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tim Flock | 9,596 | 18 | 32 |
| Buck Baker | 8,088 | 3 | 24 |
| Lee Petty | 7,194 | 6 | 20 |
| Bob Welborn | 5,460 | 0 | 12 |
| Herb Thomas | 5,186 | 3 | 14 |
| Junior Johnson | 4,810 | 5 | 12 |
Buck Baker's season was built on consistency more than victories. He finished in the top five 24 times and won both races held at North Wilkesboro, which left him second in the points table. Lee Petty's six wins were the second-highest total of the year, even though he finished third in the standings.
Which races stood out in 1955?
Several races stood out in 1955. Tim Flock won at Daytona, Martinsville, Richmond and Orange Speedway, Herb Thomas took the Southern 500 at Darlington, and Buck Baker won both North Wilkesboro events. Speedy Thompson took two October wins, at LeHi and at Martinsville, and Fonty Flock won the Mid-South 250 in August.
The Daytona road course race, the fourth of the season, was held on 27 February, and Tim Flock won from pole. Buck Baker's first North Wilkesboro win came on 3 April, when he beat Dick Rathmann by three feet over 160 laps of a 1.006 km (five-eighths of a mile) dirt track. That race lasted one hour, twenty-two minutes and three seconds, without a single caution.
Qualifying for the Richmond 200 was rained out, so the pole was settled by a draw. The race ran 200 laps on a 0.805 km (0.500 mile) dirt track and took one hour, fifty minutes and thirty seconds. Tim Flock won ahead of Fonty Flock, with Lee Petty third. On 15 May at Martinsville Speedway, Jim Paschal took pole, but Tim Flock won with Lee Petty the only other car on the lead lap. Eleven thousand people attended the race, which lasted one hour and fifty-four minutes.
The Mid-South 250 on 14 August was held at Memphis-Arkansas Speedway in LeHi, Arkansas, in front of fifteen thousand spectators. Fonty Flock won, with Speedy Thompson second and Tim Flock third. The Southern 500 followed on 5 September at Darlington, where Fireball Roberts started from pole. Herb Thomas won, with Jim Reed second and Tim Flock third. Local entrants treated the race as an annual tradition, and their mechanics spent a month working on the cars for it. Making the field was considered an honour, and the race was one of the major stock car events held before the 1959 Daytona 500.
The LeHi 300 on 9 October brought a win for Speedy Thompson, with Marvin Panch second and Jimmy Massey third. Among the NASCAR beginners in the field were Johnny Allen, Bill Morton, Jim Murray, Norm Nelson and Chuck Stevenson. Floyd Curtis, Hooker Hood, Roscoe Rann and Leland Sewell were among the drivers who left the series after that race. Thompson won again at Martinsville on 16 October, when Gwyn Staley took pole by draw. The same day, Tim Flock took pole at Orange Speedway in Hillsboro, North Carolina, and won with five other cars on the lead lap. Six thousand spectators watched the race, which lasted one hour and sixteen minutes.
The second North Wilkesboro race of the autumn was run on 23 October, when Buck Baker beat Lee Petty by three seconds. The race also gave Joe Weatherly his first top-five finish.
What did the 1955 season leave behind?
The 1955 season showed a series still built on dirt, first-generation drivers and cars that made about 230 horsepower. Paved ovals and the generation of racers with family ties were still ahead, and both would reshape the sport in the decades that followed.
The year was defined by Tim Flock's numbers: 18 wins, 32 top-five finishes and a 1,508-point margin over Buck Baker. Those figures show a champion who was near the front week after week, even on a calendar where most races were run on dirt.
