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G. C. Spencer......NASCAR Grand Nationals....1960s by Walt Wimer

Back on September 20 NASCAR lost one of its better known "independent" drivers of the 60s/70s when G. C. Spencer passed away at age 82. Spencer, whose full name was Grover Clinton Spencer, was a NASCAR Grand National (Now Nextel Cup) regular from 1959 through 1974, and raced on a limited basis as late as 1977. He was one of a fairly large group of "independents" that helped NASCAR Late Model racing survive during that period of history when they only had a handful of good cars that would race the entire circuit. Spencer was one of the better independent runners, recording 415 starts and 138 top ten finishes. He never won a race, but finished second 7 times and third 9 times, and had 55 top fives over his career. As he began to wind down his career, he had a number of other drivers driving his cars including Ed Negre, and Connie Saylor during the twilight of Spencer's driving career. As a result, his cars ran more races than he did, having a total of 452 starts. Spencer came from Tennessee, where he was reported to have been a pretty good Modified driver, but for most of his NASCAR career ran out of Inman, SC just north of Spartanburg. He almost always drove his own cars, but in 1963 ran two races in the legendary Ray Fox #3 1963 Chevy. 1965 was the best year of his career, as he finished 4th in the national points with 3 seconds, 4 thirds and 14 times in the top five. That year he drove a white 1964 Ford #49. Having lived in South Carolina 1960-61, I saw Spencer race an number of times during that period

TOP.........June 10, 1961 at Bowman-Gray Stadium, Winston-Salem, NC. This was a GN-Modified double header on the quarter- mile paved speedway that is the oldest operating track in the NASCAR fold. Spencer in this #48 1960 Chevy, finished 8th and won the tidy sum of $150!!! He finished 193 laps and was 7 laps back of winner Rex White, who really got rich with $900 in his pocket....I wonder what the Modifieds paid!!! By just looking at Spencer's car sitting at the pit entry gate, you can tell just how far we have come in the past 46 years.....Towing with a tow bar with an old pick-up!!!! Today most Street Stock divers have much better than that!!! Spencer wasn't the only driver coming in on a tow bar, but winner White and Jimmy Pardue, who finished one spot behind Spencer, came in on open trailers. Several of the Modified guys had better tow deals than Spencer!!

MIDDLE.....I had only been back "home" to western PA less than three months when this old "race chaser" hauled off to Martinsville, Va. for another double header for both Modifieds and GN. The GN race was on Sunday April 24, 1966, but I probably took this photo on Saturday. At this point Spencer had gone from Chevy to Ford and then on to Plymouth and at Martinsville was behind the wheel of this 1965 Plymouth, which he drove to 5th place, behind Jim Paschal, Paul Goldsmith, Richard Petty & Elmo Langley. Spencer was a whopping 14 laps back of Paschal!!! But he had less troubles than quite a few of the better known drivers such as Bobby Allison (just getting going in GN with the Betty Lilly #24 Ford), David Pearson, in the Cotton Ownes Dodge, Buck & Buddy Baker, Sam McQuagg & Bobby Johns. The race started 40 cars, but only Paschal and Goldsmith completed the entire 500 laps while Petty was 5 laps down!! Paschal, and the Friedkin Enterprises #14 team won $4,550. But it dropped off quick and Spencer only took home $725!! Compared to today's Martinsville races there were only 18 cars running at the finish!! And amazingly there was only one caution for all of 6 laps!! I am not happy with a lot of what NASCAR does today, but don't let anyone tell you their races were better back then. The Bowman-Gray race also only had two cars on the lead lap with third place Junior Johnson a lap back and a lap ahead of the 4th and 5th place finishers. Sure we would all like to see a ton more passing then there is today, both in Cup races and at our weekly tracks, but much of the "passing" back in the NASCAR days of yesteryear was "lapping!"!!!

BOTTOM........This is just a black & white shot of the same #49 at Martinsville in 1966. Spencer ran #48 in his early days in NASCAR, but changed somewhere around 1964 or 65 to #49, which I think he ran the rest of his career. James Hylton took over the #48 at that time and maybe he and Spencer agreed on the number change for some reason. Hylton was a crew member for Rex White in Spartanburg when White was NASCAR champ and then went into driving and was always #48.

NOTE: The stats posted here are from the STOCK CAR RACING ENCYCLOPEDIA and Greg Fielden's books FORTY YEARS OF STOCK CAR RACING.