MEET THE NEW BOSS

LOVED. LOATHED. AND FEARED. CARL KIEKHAEFER INVENTED THE MODERN NASCAR TEAM.

- BY A.J. BAIME

“Wherever I am going in the future, heaven or hell, I do hope they have an engineering department.” —Carl Kiekhaefer

“OVER THE BROAD, flat, dazzling expanse of Daytona Beach a giant cloud of sand mushroomed into the blue Florida sky like dust from an exploding bomb,” recalled a Sports Illustrated reporter about the 1955 NASCAR Grand National race at Daytona Beach. “Perched on sand dunes, on grandstands, on the tops of thousands of parked cars, 28,000 spectators strained eyes and ears as the low rumble of 10,000 horsepower pushing 48 of America’s newest and fastest production automobiles swelled to a roar on the backstretch.”

This was the climactic event of Daytona Speed Weeks, February 1955. The country’s love affair with cars was at its apogee. The Corvette and the Thunderbird were fresh models. The ’55 Chevy, now with an optional V-8, was a sensation. Americans would purchase a record 7.9 million new vehicles in 1955, while Time magazine would name GM president Harlow Curtice its Man of the Year. And nothing captured this ecstatic automotive spirit like stock-car racing at Daytona.

In the days ahead of the Grand National event, Speed Weeks fans would have seen something unexpected on the beach: a 48-year-old, 225-pound man wearing a long-sleeve white shirt, rimless glasses, and a bow tie, his lips curled over a Cuban cigar, surrounded by an army of people in matching white uniforms who were rushing around a white hauler truck emblazoned with the words “Kiekhaefer’s Mercury Outboard Motors, The Most Powerful Name in Outboards.”