1953 Southern 500

1953 Southern 500
Race details[1]
Race 30 of 37 in the 1953 NASCAR Grand National Series season
1953 Southern 500 program and logo
1953 Southern 500 program and logo
Date September 7, 1953 (1953-September-07)
Official name Southern 500
Location Darlington Raceway, Darlington, South Carolina
Course Permanent racing facility
1.375 mi (2.213 km)
Distance 364 laps, 500.0 mi (804.6 km)
Weather Very hot with temperatures of 82.9 °F (28.3 °C); wind speeds of 8.9 miles per hour (14.3 km/h)
Average speed 92.881 miles per hour (149.477 km/h)
Attendance 37,000[2]
Pole position
Driver
Frank Christian
Most laps led
Driver Buck Baker Bob Griffin
Laps 151
Winner
No. 87 Buck Baker Bob Griffin
Television in the United States
Network untelevised
Announcers none

The 1953 Southern 500, the fourth running of the event, was a NASCAR Grand National Series event that was held on September 7, 1953, at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina.

Junior Johnson would make his NASCAR Cup Series debut in this event; amongst a long list of other rookie drivers. Bob Weatherly, Lonnie Bragg, and Elmer Cooper would race their only NASCAR event here along with several others.[3] " Just months prior to the 1953 running of the Southern 500, the shape of the track made passing opportunities very few. A reconstruction helped to mold the racetrack into a fast venue for stock car racing prior to the completion of Daytona International Speedway.[4]

Along with this track, almost every track in the Southeastern United States had a weekly racing series. During the 1950s, regular passenger cars were not so different from the cars that the NASCAR drivers used at the races. The gulf between everyday passenger vehicles and NASCAR vehicles started to widen in the mid-1970s due to environmental concerns; becoming pronounced by the late-1970s.

  1. ^ Weather information for the 1953 Southern 500 at The Old Farmers' Almanac
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference rr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Information for the 1953 Southern 500 at Race Database
  4. ^ he Rebuilt Darlington in Color Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine at Racers Reunion