On the Road Again : At 64, Herschel McGriff Is Ready to Retire--From Work, Not Racing

SONOMA, Calif. — Thirty-eight years ago, on June 13, 1954, NASCAR ran its first road race on a makeshift two-mile layout at the airport in Linden, N.J.

Hershel McGriff drove a Jaguar that day as NASCAR founder Bill France experimented with mixing sports cars and stock cars.

Today, in the Save Mart 300 at Sears Point International Raceway, NASCAR will run its 72nd road race, still an out-of-character event for a sanctioning body dedicated to stock car oval-track racing on superspeedways.

McGriff, who will be 65 in December, will be in this one, too, driving a Chevrolet Lumina.

“I remember that race in ‘54,” McGriff recalled between practice sessions for today’s race. “It was on a little old flat course on the landing strip. Bill France called me and said he had a couple of Jaguars available, with Paul Whiteman--the band leader--listed as the owner. He wanted me to drive one. He wanted to see how Jags, Porsches, Austin-Healys and MGs would run with the stockers--mainly Hudsons, Dodges, Fords and Chryslers in those days.”

He crashed the Jaguar on the 37th lap.

“We ran a couple of other races--in Chicago and Baltimore--but the idea of running the sports cars didn’t last long,” McGriff said. “When the season ended, I quit racing and went back home to Portland to earn a living to support my family.”

McGriff, who had won a Mexican road race in 1950, spent the next 12 years buying and selling lumber and flying his airplane from mill to mill in the Pacific Northwest.

“I got out of racing altogether,” he said. “I got my thrills out of flying instead of racing. I’d land on dirt roads, anywhere I could set the plane down. I got a kick out of taking my plane down in some strange place and taxiing right up to the mill office. I found flying really saved time from driving over those narrow mountain roads.”

In 1967, though, he was enticed into driving in a couple of short-track races around Portland. And in the winter of 1968, he decided to build a car to run on Riverside International Raceway’s road course.

“I towed the car from Oregon myself, and there was a big snowstorm around Mt. Shasta so I didn’t get to Riverside until the second day of qualifying,” he said. “I had to start way in the back, although I had one of the quicker times.

“The race was just about over when it started raining in Turn 9. I came through there and spun out, but I gathered it up and headed into the pits. I was leading, so the crew waved me on and I took another lap and the race was called.”

The race, a late-model sportsman companion feature to the Motor Trend 500, was the first of 14 races McGriff won at Riverside. No one else won as many.

When Riverside ran its last Winston Cup race in 1986 before the track was shut down, McGriff was named grand marshal.

“That was a great day for me, riding around the track in a convertible pace car, waving to everybody, and then coming in, jumping in my race car and running the final race at Riverside,” he said. “It was also a sad day. I always thought of Riverside as my home track, even though I lived in Oregon, and I really hated to see it close.”

In the early ‘70s, after a couple of years of driving on what is now the Winston Cup circuit, McGriff returned to Oregon to race in Winston West, a West Coast circuit. He won a record 12 races in 1972 but lost the championship to Ray Elder. In 1986 McGriff won only eight races, but that was enough to clinch his only championship.

“The last few years I’ve quit running for points,” he said. “I run a few Winston West and a few Northwest and Southwest Tour events.”

He is driving today for John Strauser of Walla Walla, Wash. The car arrived late at the track and McGriff qualified far back, in 31st position among 40 cars. He doesn’t figure to challenge such Winston Cup veterans pole-sitter Ricky Rudd, Davey Allison, Bill Elliott or Dale Earnhardt, but he may be the first Winston West finisher. He was No. 1 among West Coast drivers in both the 1989 and 1990 Sears Point road races.

His 35 Winston West victories rank third only to Jackie McCoy’s 54 and Elder’s 47.

When he won his last main event, in 1989 at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield, McGriff was 61 years 4 months old--the oldest winner of a major stock car race (Winston Cup, Winston West or Busch Grand National) in NASCAR history. He also was named most popular Winston West driver 11 years in a row.

Between races, McGriff works in Green Valley, Ariz., for a firm that buys closed-down mines and sells the mining equipment around the world.

“Living in Portland and working in Arizona made it so tough for me to run my own team that this year I’m driving for other people,” he said. “I’ll probably drive 14 or 15 races on the road this year and a few around Portland.”

Is retirement in McGriff’s future?

“Yes, I’m planning on retiring from my Arizona job next year,” he said with a sly grin. “That’ll free up more time for racing.”

Still as trim--he’s 5 feet 10 inches and 180 pounds--as he was when he first showed up at Riverside, McGriff may not be kidding. He’s made a pitch for a car next season.

Last January, when he was presented the NASCAR award of excellence by Bill France Jr. at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, McGriff brought the house down when he said, “I throw my hat in the ring to be in the running to replace Richard Petty in the No. 43 car when he retires in 1993.”