On September 1, 1958, Fireball Roberts scored his first Southern 500 win at Darlington Raceway driving a year-old Chevrolet. Here’s an excellent period film report on the popular victory. 

NASCAR boss and founder Big Bill France entered the 1958 season armed with one of the many lessons that guided him in creating one of the world’s great racing series. With the AMA manufacturer ban in the spring of 1957, the Motor City’s automakers had suddenly and with no warning pulled out of the sport. But with or without Detroit’s financial support, France was determined that the show would go on. From then on, France would welcome the car makers and their deep pockets, but he was resolved never to depend on them. He, not them, would run the show.

In 1958, the giant superspeedway in Daytona Beach was still little more than a gleam in Big Bill’s eye, and the big race on the schedule was the annual Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Labor Day weekend. The ’58 event is remembered today on two counts: the harrowing crash of polesitter Eddie Pagan, who hammered straight through the Turn 1 guardrail but somehow suffered only a broken nose (watch it here at about the 5:30 mark). And there was the crowd-pleasing victory of future NASCAR Hall of Fame Inductee Fireball Roberts.

Named the sport’s most popular driver in 1957, Fireball won six of the 10 Grand National races he entered in ’58, including the Southern 500. His ’57 Chevy Sport Coupe was a year old at the time, ancient in race car years, but it proved to be more than equal to the challenge. Video below.