The name Talladega is arguably one of the most recognizable to motor sports fans.This weekend, hundreds of thousands will flock to Talladega’s Superspeedway, the most competitive track in NASCAR, filling its 143,000 seats and occupying its 212-acre infield to see stock cars zoom across the 2.66-mile track at speeds topping 200 mph.
Race fans know racing statistics, the name of every driver on their favorite teams and the number of trophies their favorite drivers have won, as well as the times he should have won, but didn’t.
Something race fans might not know, however, is that Talladega County was the first choice for a track in the state; an idea first rejected by the “Father of NASCAR” himself, Bill France Sr. At that time, France’s first major racing vision, the Daytona International Speedway, had opened in Florida.
Through his contacts with France, a now-insurance salesman from Anniston, Bill Ward, is mostly responsible for bringing the superspeedway to Talladega.
When Ward had his first telephone conversations with then-Talladega Mayor James Hardwick, and again when he met with members of the City Council, he got a shocking response to his desire to bring a racetrack to Talladega.
“They all told me I was crazy,” he said.
Ward, an avid race fan and amateur racer at the time, first got involved with the project when Fonty Flock, a famed racecar driver in the 1950s and ‘60s, contacted him about the possibility of building a track in Alabama.
“Fonty had picked out a spot down here on Highway 78, close to Eastaboga,” Ward said. “I told him if he would contact Mr. France in Daytona and if Mr. France approved it, I would get involved.”
The selected 400-acre spot in Eastaboga, which is about 14 miles northeast of Talladega, was turned down because France said the space wouldn’t work.
“He came down to look at the land and turned it down because it wasn’t close to an interstate and there wasn’t enough land,” Ward said.
After the original spot was rejected, Ward said Flock began a career with NASCAR and left for Daytona, home of the prestigious Daytona 500, which opened in 1959. Ward said that after Flock left is when he really got involved in the project.
“Mr. France told us he was going to build another superspeedway and that it was probably going to be in Spartanburg (S.C.), so I called Mr. France on several occasions,” Ward said. “He gave me the assignment of finding approximately 1,000 to 2,000 acres of land in the state and then he would come look at it.”
The main specifications for the land were accessibility to an interstate highway system and a population base of approximately 20 million people within a 300-mile radius.
Ward found three locations throughout the state that fit the bill — one in Courtland, located in Lawrence County in northwest Alabama, another in Gadsden, located in Etowah County, and, of course, the 2,000 acre soybean field in Talladega.
He showed France the Talladega location first and said he didn’t have to show him the other two.
“He said, ‘This is just what I’m looking for,’” Ward said.
With France’s approval, Ward contacted Hardwick in 1965 about building the speedway.
“They had never seen a NASCAR race and what they could picture was a little quarter-mile dirt track,” Ward said. “So they weren’t very interested in it.”
Opinions of the sport changed, however, when the mayor and council members accompanied France to a race in Daytona and saw the race and its accompanying crowd.
“When they got back, they were calling me saying, ‘Get that man back up here, and let’s build this thing,’” Ward said.
Construction began on the Alabama International Motor Speedway, which the speedway was called until its name change in 1989, and its first race — The Talladega 500 — was held Sept. 14, 1969.
Today, the Talladega Superspeedway is one of the top tourist attractions in Alabama. It brings more than $400 million per year, approximately 11 percent of the state’s total tourism revenue.
“I never dreamed in my life it would grow as big as it has,” said Ward, who competed in the first 15 races at the new speedway. “I’m very proud I played a small part in getting the track in Alabama.”
