If George Amick hadn’t been killed, Raleigh Speedway might have lived, Daytona’s summer NASCAR race may have never been born, and we’d all be none the wiser.

Huh?

We’ll explain all that as another summertime NASCAR visit to Daytona Beach comes and goes and another season rolls on to the next stop in its February-to-November motorcade.

No, it wasn’t always scheduled for nighttime, wasn’t always run in August, wasn’t always 400 miles, and didn’t always wear the label of a major soda company.

And no, frankly, in the very beginning, it wasn’t even on the agenda.

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Daytona isn't 2½ miles by accident

NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. based his racing organization in his adopted hometown of Daytona Beach, eventually built his dream speedway on the west side of town, made damn sure it measured 2½ miles, and not simply on a whim.

Big Bill had an ongoing rivalry (or feud, depending on what day it was) with the folks who ran open-wheel racing — AAA, followed by USAC — and sanctioned the world’s most famous race, the Indianapolis 500. In fact, in 1954, Indy officials gave him a less-than-warm escort to the exit when he showed up in Gasoline Alley during the month of May.

NASCAR, though an upstart in the 1950s, was growing and the Indy folks didn’t want Big Bill sniffing around the joint looking to poach drivers. Indy and USAC wanted to snuff out any competition, or at least slow its roll, before it got traction.

So it wasn’t mere happenstance that stretched the Daytona odometer to 2.5 miles, matching the length of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Also key was the 31-degree banking on the east and west ends of the track, and the 18-degree banking at the start/finish line — all made possible by dredging the property’s muck, stacking it in the turns, and creating the infield's rectangular Lake Lloyd (it was just a “borrow pit” until Big Bill named it after community supporter Sax Lloyd, a car dealer and Big Bill’s first boss in Daytona Beach).

The massive banking, which would spook many a racer upon his first fallopian exit from the Speedway’s entry tunnel, would allow drivers to stay in the gas instead of lifting to get through the corners, as they had to do at Indy's nearly flat Brickyard.

This would all pay off on the Fourth of July, 1959, when Big Bill and Daytona would be hosts to a 300-mile Indy-car race.

The geometry did its part to invite speed, but when rubber met road, reality arrived in grave fashion.

George Amick's unfortunate role in Daytona racing history

The first deadly blow came during the inaugural Daytona Speedweeks in February, 1959. Local racing star Marshall Teague, looking to set a closed-course speed record in an adapted Indy-style car, lost control and was killed in a violent crash during his solo run.

Looking ahead to Daytona’s first Indy-car race in July, a true shakedown was called for. A pair of Indy-car races — each 40 laps and 100 miles — were scheduled for early April. Most of the day’s open-wheel regulars came, including 24-year-old A.J. Foyt.

Dick Rathmann won the pole at a staggering 173 mph, nearly 30 mph faster than Johnny Thomson would average the following month in winning the Indy 500 pole. It was also 33 mph faster than Bob Welborn ran to win the pole for that year’s first Daytona 500.

George Amick pushed the thermostat higher, reaching nearly 177 mph, but his lap was turned in the second round of qualifying so he would start ninth.

Rathmann’s 173 and Amick's 177 weren't comfortable, however. The purpose-built Indy machines, with their 8-inch-wide tires, weren’t well suited for those speeds on 31-degree banking.

Foyt once recalled it was like “riding on the wing of an airplane.”

“It was like racing a roadster in the snow and you stayed puckered all day,” Foyt added. “It scared the hell out of me.”

But racers being racers in those dangerous days, they raced, and for 39 laps, the race was incident-free except for one lone spin midway through. Lap 40, however, put an end to Daytona’s hoped-for Indy future when George Amick, running in the top five as leader Jim Rathmann, the pole-sitter's brother, was within sight of the checkers, lost control and darted violently into the outside guardrail.

His front wheels were severed and the roadster slid some 900 feet before coming to rest in the infield. Amick, a three-time Indy-car winner who’d finished second in the 1958 Indy 500, had been killed immediately.

The Fourth of July race also failed to survive. The track, NASCAR leaders declared, was built before America’s most popular form of race cars — “Speedway cars,” the Indy roadsters were called back then — were ready to race on it.

“The track is engineered far ahead of the automotive industry,” said NASCAR executive director Pat Purcell. “Car designers and engineers have a lot to learn about wind resistance.”

In officially canceling the July open-wheel race, a NASCAR statement said, “a close examination of driving and aerodynamic conditions existing between 160 and 200 mph should be made before Speedway cars are sent into competition at Daytona again.”

Big Bill, running lean in those early days, had budgeted for a July race and now it was gone. As ruler of NASCAR, he had options.

Raleigh's loss was Daytona's gain

Raleigh Speedway in North Carolina opened in 1952 as a 1-mile track with long straightaways and tight corners banked at 16 degrees. It also had lights, which was unique for a track that size at that time.

Starting in 1953, Raleigh began hosting a NASCAR race each year. From 1956-58, that race was run on the Fourth of July — Daytona Beach legend Fireball Roberts won two of those, by the way. There would be no 1959 race at Raleigh because Big Bill France moved the date to Daytona and began his hometown’s “other” NASCAR tradition — a mid-season race that quickly became a busman’s holiday for racers of the day.

Raleigh Speedway was soon closed due to noise complaints from nearby neighborhoods, and it was demolished in 1967. The property is now the home of Raleigh's Seaboard Industrial Park.

Meanwhile, July 4 in Daytona became a summertime working vacation for many drivers, who’d bring their families and enjoy the beach before race day. And after race day, as a matter of fact — the late-morning start time allowed all visitors to leave the track and hit the beach for much of the afternoon.

Over the years, the Firecracker 250 became the Firecracker 400, then took on the names of both Pepsi and Coke, moved to the first Saturday of July, then to nighttime, and now to late August.

In the late-’50s, some tracks were already hosting two NASCAR races annually, so a second race for Daytona would’ve likely come about eventually.

But if George Amick’s car had remained hugged to the racing lane on April 4, 1959, the previous 65 summers at Daytona might’ve been very different, not to mention faster.

— Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona IndyCar plans died early; Coke Zero Sugar 400 history lesson