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He had the face of an angel, but he was hell on wheels . Before there was a NASCAR, so-called “stock car races” began sprouting up around the country, the hotbed being the southeast, where whiskey trippers and grease monkeys from the downtown garage plied their skill for sport, rather than survival.

The most skillful began making a name for themselves . “Reckless Roy” Hall’s approach was to get to the front as soon as possible..and stay there. Though he’d be better known as a central figure in the founding of NASCAR, “Big Bill” France could be found nimbly guiding his piece through the turns at the beach/ road course at Daytona. The cerebral Red Byron, who would later become NASCAR’s first champion, was getting his start. Others like Joe Littlejohn, Smokey Purser and the brothers Bob and Fonty Flock were other names you would hear about in the fledgling world of stock car racing.

Perhaps the best of these was Dawsonville, Georgia native Lloyd Seay . Like many of his peers, the lanky youth honed his prowess outrunning revenue agents on the backroads of the south. Though he was adventurous behind the wheel, Seay was considered a more even-keeled sort than his cousin Roy Hall. The pair were part of a racing “super team”, backed by Atlanta businessman Raymond Parks, who treated Seay like a son, and mechanical genius Red Vogt.

A race at Daytona’s famed beach/road course on August 24, 1941 triggered an amazing run for the 21-year-old and seemed to foretell a promising future for the racer and stock car racing. Seay started from the 15th position at the wave of the green flag, but found himself out front by the time he completed the first lap on the 3.2 mile course.

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