How Daytona International Speedway was created

Legend has it that one morning, Bill France sketched out his ideas for a racetrack that would be the marvel of its day, allowing for speeds up to 200 mph, an unheard of velocity at that time. And on Feb. 17, 2008, hundreds of thousands of race fans will gather in Daytona Beach to enjoy the results of France's foresight.

But there were other people behind the scenes who played major roles in the construction of Daytona International Speedway, people like Charles Moneypenny, Thomas Cobb and Clint Murchison.

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By the mid '50s, France knew the beach and road course was facing extinction. Developers were eyeing the property near Ponce Inlet lighthouse, and subdivisions were already in the planning stages.

Dan Warren is a Daytona Beach attorney and former city councilman who claims to have been there in 1952 when France announced his intentions to build a superspeedway.

"We were having breakfast and Bill grabbed a doily, pulled out his pen and said, 'I want to show you what I'm proposing to build in Daytona Beach.' And he drew what became the famous tri-oval," Warren said in a 2005 interview.

But France needed help. He needed an engineer who could bring his dreams to life. He needed the support of the local government. And he needed cash to fund the project, which he estimated would cost nearly $3 million -- a hefty sum in those days.

Enter Daytona Beach city engineer Charles Moneypenny.

"I know of no textbook on the subject of how to build a racetrack," Moneypenny was quoted in a Daytona Beach News Journal article. "When I began research on this track back in 1953, the first thing I learned was that most tracks are laid out strictly by guesswork."

Moneypenny knew that Florida's sandy soil couldn't support the weight of a high-banked superspeedway and grandstands, but he knew of a location west of town, out by the airport, that might work, according to Warren.

"There was a high grade of marl gravel underneath the subsoil there. Most of the soil here is sand and you can't build on it," Warren said.

In addition, no one had attempted to build a track with the banking required to meet France's speed specifications, particularly the transitions required to connect the turns to the straightaways. So Moneypenny went to Detroit to meet with engineers who built the Ford proving ground track, which had banked corners.

"The banking at Ford wasn't as high, but they had the transition from the flat parts onto the banking," Warren said. "They shared their engineering reports so we could do it, too."

France went to the Daytona Beach city commission with his idea, where he found support from city attorney Thomas Cobb. It was Cobb who drafted the legislation in 1953 to create the Daytona Beach Racing and Recreation Facilities District. (Continued)