1953 NASCAR Grand National Series

The 1953 NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup Series) Season began on February 1 and ended on November 1. NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Herb Thomas, driving his own #92 Hudson Hornet, won the championship and became the first repeat champion of the Grand National Series.

1953-01

The first race of the 1953 season was run on February 1 at the Palm Beach Speedway in West Palm Beach, Florida. Dick Rathmann won the pole position.

Top Ten Results

1953-02

The second race of the 1953 season was run on February 15 at the Daytona Beach Road Course in Daytona Beach, Florida. Bob Pronger won the pole.

Top Ten Results

1953-03

The third race of the 1953 season was run on March 8 at Harnett Speedway in Spring Lake, North Carolina. Herb Thomas won the pole.

Bojangles' Southern 500

The Bojangles' Southern 500 is a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, United States. The race distance is 501 miles (806 km) long, and consists of 367 laps. From 1950 to 2003, the race was held on Labor Day weekend. During this period, Darlington held two Cup series races annually, the other a 400-mile event in the spring, and the Southern 500 was largely considered one of the Crown Jewels of the NASCAR calendar.

In 2004, the race was moved to November and was run as the second to last race in the inaugural Chase for the NEXTEL Cup. The following year, as the result of a settlement in the Ferko lawsuit, Darlington lost its September race date and chose to move the 500 mile race distance to its remaining date. The 500 was renamed for the sponsorship of Dodge and was moved to Mother's Day weekend in May. The race was run on a Saturday night during this period.

The event reassumed the Southern 500 name in 2009. In 2014, the race moved to April after swapping dates with Kansas Speedway. NASCAR announced that the Southern 500 would be returning to its traditional Labor Day weekend date for 2015, replacing Atlanta Motor Speedway as the host of the Labor Day weekend event (Atlanta's race, meanwhile, was moved into the early portion of the season).

Hudson Hornet

The Hudson Hornet is an automobile which was produced by the Hudson Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, between 1951 and 1954 and then by American Motors Corporation (AMC) in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and marketed under the Hudson brand between 1955 and 1957.

The first-generation Hudson Hornets featured a functional "step-down" design with dropped floorpan and a chassis with a lower center of gravity than contemporary vehicles that helped the car handle well – a bonus for racing. The Hornet's lower and sleeker look was accentuated by streamlined styling, sometimes called "ponton" styling. The car's "unique, low slung appearance and silky handling earned Hudson an image that – for many buyers – eclipsed luxury marques like Cadillac."

The second-generation Hudson Hornets became a restyled Nash that was badge engineered as a Hudson.

First generation

The Hornet, introduced for the 1951 model year, was based on Hudson's "step-down" design that was first seen in the 1948 model year on the Commodore. The design merged body and chassis frame into a single structure, with the floor pan recessed between the car's chassis rails instead of sitting on top of them. Thus one "stepped down" into a Hudson. The step-down chassis's "lower center of gravity...was both functional and stylish. The car not only handled well, but treated its six passengers to a sumptuous ride. The low-slung look also had a sleekness about it that was accentuated by the nearly enclosed rear wheels."

Stock Car (video game)

Stock Car is an 8-bit computer game written by A. W. Halse and published in the UK by Micro Power. The game was released in 1984 for the BBC Micro, Acorn Electron and Commodore 64 computers. Although the cassette inlay gives the release date as 1984, some sources state the release date as 1983 and the game is also known as Stock Car Racer.

Description

The game provides a top-down view of one of six user-selectable racing tracks. One or two human players in red cars compete against yellow computer-controlled cars. Oil slicks can be added which cause the cars to veer off-course, making the game more challenging. The amount of skidding can also be selected by the player. A race consists of anything between 1 and 40 laps.

Players can steer their car left and right, but unlike most racing games, there are no keys for directly braking or accelerating. Instead, the player drives by selecting one of four gears (or neutral) and the car will accelerate according to the currently selected gear.

Julian Buesink

Julian E. Buesink (September 4, 1921 – September 23, 1998) was the car owner and crew chief of Bill Rexford's 1950 NASCAR Grand National Series (now Sprint Cup Series) championship run and his teammate Lloyd Moore.

Buesink's drivers competed in 156 NASCAR races with two wins (Rexford and Lloyd) and 64 Top 10 finishes. Other drivers include nine drivers in 1951, Bob Duell between 1956 and 1960, and he ended with Cale Yarborough driving for him between 1961 and 1963. He drove in his own car for one race in 1951, starting seventeen and finishing 27th.

He was a resident of Findley Lake, New York, where he owned and operated an automobile dealership.

References