Race To Live: Early 60s NASCAR Promotional Film Is Absolutely Amazing


Race To Live: Early 60s NASCAR Promotional Film Is Absolutely Amazing

Race to Live is the title of an early 1960s NASCAR promotional film that we found posted in its entirety on YouTube. We think it was made in 1961 judging by the cars in the video.  The film appears to be an effort by NASCAR to educate the greater population about the overall culture of the sport. They profile “who” the racers are, the profile “who” the fans are, they talk about safety, they talk about the facilities, and they talk about the reason that NASCAR was on the rise to become a big league national sport across the country. While the cars are awesome and there are some moments of mind-blowingly cool footage, the package as a whole cannot be beat. There are moments clearly designed to foster the family atmosphere of stock car racing, especially when the announcer proclaims that there are no “hot rodders” in involved and the usage of the word “engineer” gets to be nearly tourettes-like at one point.

The film is pretty long at 27-minutes, but we’re begging you to check this baby out, even if it is just in sections. You’ll see guys like Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, Freddy Lorenzen, Cotton Owens, and many more. You’ll see mechanics adjusting the valves on running engines. You’ll see Smokey Yunick’s Pontiac as driven by Fireball Roberts kicking everyone’s ass in multiple parts of this film. You’ll see tracks like  Darlington, and any number of smaller facilities. You’ll see the lots of footage showing the cars and drivers of NASCAR’s short lived convertible division, pit stops, ohhhhh the greatness that this film drips!

Our favorite part of the whole deal is where the announcer is talking about the tracks and how the races are so well attended now that local areas were having trouble handling spectators at some courses so track operators opened up their infields for camping. The next couple minutes are filled with footage of people sleeping in their cars, on their cars, under their cars, one dude is UNDER THE HOOD. It is honestly great stuff. There’s a section that talks about women at the races and it is full on early 1960s. Producing that part of the film using the same language and attitude today would garner you lots of unwanted headlines. It is funny to look at it through modern eyes.

One part that rings absolutely true about racing is stated perfectly in this film and that is when the announcer talks about why people are attracted to motorsports involving cars that they recognize and identify with. Basically the line is something like, “A fan will never know a race horse or ball player like he knows his car,” and since the cars on the track were very similar looking to the ones they drove to the track in, the connection was deep and meaningful.

We have shown you thousands of videos over the years here on BangShift. Some have been great, most have been OK, and some have sucked. This is one of the coolest finds we have ever made and we can promise that once you hit play, you’re not going to want to stop it!

PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE “RACE TO LIVE” AN EARLY 1960S NASCAR PROMOTIONAL VIDEO THAT STANDS AS ONE OF THE NEATEST THINGS WE HAVE EVER FOUND!

 

 

 

 


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