Major Wreckage on the Old Beach Course at Daytona

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We unearthed this radical ancient video of Modified jalopies whooping it up on the Daytona Beach circle track in the late ’40s or early ’50s. These guys really thrashed the cars, almost to the point of complete destruction. Hang on for the end of the video to see things get really out of control. It’s obvious that these racers knew that a fresh race car was just 10 or 20 bucks away at the nearest wrecking yard. Yeah, the old-school oval-trackers were every bit as neat as the early drag machinery, and this video prooves why.

When the cars start flying out of control in the end quarter of the video, pay attention to how well they seem to handle flying through the air and landing roof down. Granted, they are landing on sand for the most part, but we’d have expected lots more pancaking of roofs. Maybe those threaded pipe roll bars really work!