A bomber engineer who lost the use of his left leg in 1944 returned to racing with a clutch pedal fitted to his brace and went on to become NASCAR's first Modified and Strictly Stock champion.
Byron won NASCAR's first Modified championship in 1948 and its first Strictly Stock title in 1949. A 1944 bomber injury to his left leg did not end his driving, and he is also remembered for the adapted clutch that let him keep racing. He died in Chicago in 1960, aged 45.
Red Byron was an American stock car driver who became NASCAR's first Modified champion in 1948 and its first Strictly Stock champion in 1949. He won the opening race of NASCAR's sanctioned history at Daytona Beach, and he returned to racing after a bomber injury in the Second World War with a specially adapted clutch pedal.
Where did Red Byron come from?
Robert Nold Byron was born on 12 March 1915 in Washington County, Virginia, and moved to Colorado as a young child. He considered Anniston, Alabama, his hometown, and he began racing there and at Talladega in the 1930s, before the war interrupted his career.
He raced at Lakewood Speedway, where he drove any car he could find. That was where Raymond Parks, a former bootlegger who later ran a vending machine business, noticed him. Parks ran a team, and with his mechanic and race engineer Red Vogt, Byron found a regular place in competition.
A bomber engineer with a damaged leg, a clutch pedal fitted with stirrup pins and two NASCAR championships in two divisions.
How did the war injury affect Byron's career?
Byron joined the Army Air Corps in spring 1941, signing up at a Montgomery, Alabama recruiting station. He became a flight engineer on B-24 Liberator bombers, flying fifty-eight missions with engineer and tail gunner duties. On his 58th mission in 1944, a bomb that had been hung in the aircraft was released, and an explosion badly injured his left leg.
He spent 27 months in rehabilitation at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. While recovering he sketched devices to help him drive again. In 1946, working with Vogt, he fitted stirrup pins to his clutch pedal, and when they were combined with his leg brace he could operate the clutch.
How did Byron return to racing?
Pre-war, Byron ran AAA Indy events, chiefly in sprints and midgets, and in July 1941 he took his first stock car win during a two-day pass from training. He did not race again for several years, and he returned in 1945 with help from Vogt.
His first win after the war was the Hankinson Memorial at Seminole Speedway on 24 February 1946, ahead of Roy Hall and Bill France. Later in 1946 he was runner-up at Selinsgrove Speedway's first race, an AAA Big Car event that Bill Holland won.
How did Byron win the 1948 NASCAR Modified title?
In 1948 Byron joined the newly formed NASCAR Modified Series with Raymond Parks' team. Byron's first NASCAR-sanctioned win came in the Rayson Memorial at the Daytona Beach Road Course, ahead of Marshall Teague and Bob Flock.
The championship was a close one. Byron was locked in a points rivalry with Fonty Flock, who had a strong start, but Byron won at North Wilkesboro, Lakeview, Wadesboro, the Atlantic Rural Exposition Fairgrounds and Greensboro in spring and early summer. On 11 July he won at Charlotte Speedway, where rain shortened the race to ninety-one laps.
The early rounds were mixed. Byron finished third behind both Flocks at Speedway Park, then second to Fonty Flock at Lakewood Speedway. At Central City Speedway he finished sixth while Flock won, and at Hayloft Speedway he finished outside the points. Those results left the title race open until the autumn.
Flock then won three races in a row through September and extended his lead, which made the autumn decisive.
A serious accident at Columbus Speedway on 25 July followed a tyre blow on Byron's car, which ran into a group of spectators. Sixteen people were injured and a seven-year-old boy was killed. Byron was not hurt, and later in the same race driver Bill Davis was also killed in a crash.
The autumn decided the title. On 3 October, during a Central City Speedway double-header, he took third in race one and then charged from tenth to win race two, moving into the series lead. He was a close second to Flock at Greensboro on 10 and 16 October, then won at North Wilkesboro on 17 October and at Charlotte on 24 October. He finished second at the Forsyth County Fairgrounds on 31 October and won the season final at Columbus Raceway on 14 November.
Flock led the points for much of the summer, and each Byron win shortened the gap. That is why the autumn results mattered so much, because only a late run of wins and placings could carry Byron past him.
He was crowned the 1948 NASCAR Modified Champion with 11 wins and 25 top fives during the season.
How did Byron become the first Strictly Stock champion?
In 1949 Byron began racing in NASCAR's new Strictly Stock series, which later became the Grand National series, the Winston Cup and the modern NASCAR Cup Series. The inaugural season had eight races, and he took two of them.
Raymond Parks continued as his team owner, and with him Byron was equally successful in the first Strictly Stock season.
His first Strictly Stock win came at the Daytona Beach Road Course, where he took the race after the leader, Gober Sosebee, had an issue with seven laps to go. He led the final six laps. Later that year he won at Martinsville on 25 September, leading ninety-seven laps and effectively clinching the title.
He also raced in the Modified division in 1949, starting 11 races and recording two wins and ten top-five finishes. He still finished seventh in the points that year, despite starting fewer than a quarter of the season's races.
A five-car crash on lap thirty-nine of the third race, at Occoneechee Speedway, dropped him to twenty-second. In September at Langhorne he started from pole, fought Curtis Turner and Bob Flock over two hundred laps, and came home third.
Sixteenth in the Wilkes 200 on 16 October was enough, as the title finished 117.5 points clear of Lee Petty. He won twice, finished in the top five four times and in the top ten four times, and the title made him the division's first champion.
Why did Byron's NASCAR career wind down?
His leg injury was the main reason. Declining health meant that he raced less and less, and in 1950 he started only four of the nineteen Grand National races. He still finished third in the 1950 Southern 500, but he went winless for the first time in NASCAR competition that season.
That year brought no victories, and only three top fives and three top tens.
Two Modified starts that March included a one hundred lap win at Charlotte Speedway on 5 March.
By 1951 he was entering only five of the forty-one events. His worst result came at Columbia Speedway, where he finished thirtieth. His last start was the 1951 Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, where an accident ended his race in the twenty-fifth position. He retired from driving that year.
His thirtieth-place finish at Columbia was the lowest of his Grand National career.
What did Byron do after he stopped driving?
He stayed in the sport in a different role. He worked with Briggs Cunningham on a homegrown sportscar intended to win Grand Prix races, then ran a Corvette effort chasing the same goal. Neither effort paid off, yet he loved sportscars and ran his own sports car team through much of the 1950s.
When he died he was running the Scarab SCCA squad, which Augi Pabst and Harry Heuer owned. He remained in the sports car world he had grown to enjoy, even after leaving NASCAR behind as a driver.
How did Byron die?
Byron's death came on 11 November 1960, when a heart attack struck him in his Chicago hotel room. He was 45. He had travelled to Chicago to meet Anheuser-Busch executives about a possible sports car team. The next day he was due to fly to Daytona Beach to join the Scarab team at its final race.
The Scarab team's last race was the championship event at Daytona International Speedway, the weekend he was due to join the team. The race was to be its final event before it disbanded, so his death came as the operation was winding down.
What is Byron's legacy?
Byron's achievements are measured mostly by the titles he won in NASCAR's first years, when its divisions and rules were still being formed. Two championships in two divisions, the first NASCAR-sanctioned win at Daytona Beach and a place among the sport's founding figures make him one of its earliest stars.
Byron is remembered as the first champion of NASCAR's Modified and Strictly Stock divisions, and as a driver who returned to racing after a severe war injury.
The National Motorsports Hall of Fame recognised him in 1966, and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame followed in 2008. NASCAR named him one of its 50 Greatest Drivers in 1998, and he was included among the 75 Greatest in 2023 because he had been part of the original 50. NASCAR's Hall of Fame came on 19 January 2018, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America added him on 17 March 2020.
Season by season, how did Byron's record look?
| Season | Series | Main result |
|---|---|---|
| 1948 | NASCAR Modified | Champion; 11 wins, 25 top fives |
| 1949 | Strictly Stock | Champion by 117.5 points; two wins |
| 1949 | Modified | 11 starts; two wins; ten top fives |
| 1950 | Grand National | Four starts; no wins; third at the Southern 500 |
| 1951 | Grand National | Five starts; worst finish thirtieth |