Histories

They are household names when it comes to NASCAR - names like Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty.
Throw out the name Jim Roper to the sport's millions of fans and most are left scratching their heads.

That includes in Halstead, where Roper once lived and graduated from high school. He doesn't get the recognition of another native son, legendary University of Kentucky basketball coach Adolph Rupp.

"Rupp has a tournament named after him," Roper's friend, Halstead resident Craig Sooter, said of Halstead High School's annual basketball tournament.

To some locals, the Halstead Historical Society board member said, racing isn't the same as high school sports like basketball.

For now, Roper just has a panel dedicated to his accomplishments at the museum. And while Rupp is in the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, Roper has yet to be inducted.

Still, in the grand scheme of NASCAR, what Roper would accomplish would be monumental, Sooter said.

This is the story of a how a rural Kansas farm boy came to triumph on June 19, 1949, at what was then Charlotte Speedway, a three-fourths-mile dirt track on the Sprint Cup Series - on the day the premier auto racing division was born.

He would be the first ever to win a NASCAR race, even beating out legendary Lee Petty, who rolled his car during the contest.

Roper died in 2000 from complications from cancer, but his memory in the racing industry lives on with folks like Sooter and longtime friend Bill Mills of Newton.

"He was quite a character," Mills said on a recent afternoon. "He was kind of a Peter Pan-type guy. Even as he got older, he was still youthful thinking."

Inaugural race

NASCAR was born in 1948 with races that included both modified and roadster cars. Fans, however, wanted something more traditional, according to NASCAR. The Strictly Stock division, however, was put on hold as U.S. automobile manufacturers were unable to produce family sedans quickly enough to keep up with post-World War II demand.

The first Strictly Stock race was planned for June 19, 1949. Roper learned of the race by accident. He was at his home reading the paper when he noticed the race was mentioned in the "Smilin' Jack" comic strip.

Roper already had been racing cars for years in a Midwestern circuit, Mills said. Born in 1916 in Halstead, as the story goes, Roper had been interested in basketball until a relative gave him a Chevrolet, thus beginning his career in 1930.

He was involved in midget car races, driving seven days a week, Sooter said.

Mills said he was around the age of 3 in 1947 when Roper started driving a track roadster for his father, Earl Mills of Newton - establishing the family's lifelong friendship with Roper. But in 1949, after reading the comics, he talked friend and Great Bend car dealership owner Millard Clothier into heading with him to North Carolina for the 150-mile, 200-lap NASCAR debut. After all, the week prior to the NASCAR race, Roper had won the Colorado Championship. So Roper and Clothier left the dealership with two new 1949 Lincolns - driving them all the way to North Carolina. They painted Roper's No. 34 on the side.

Roper would race in front of an estimated 23,000 people, according to NASCAR.

"NASCAR was brand new," Roper told the Kansas City Star in 1998. "It started out well, one of the biggest crowds they ever had."

It would be an interesting race, with several of the cars overheating before they could even get to the checkered flag, according to the Newton Kansan. Future NASCAR Hall of Famer Tim Flock told NASCAR Winston Cup Series magazine all the cars were "running hot. It was really mass confusion" by the time just a quarter of the race had been completed.

Lee Petty blew a tire and his car flipped over, ending the race for racing legend Richard Petty's father, according to NASCAR.

Roper would make it to the end, but when the checkered flag was waved, it looked like Roper had come in second, Mills said.

But even the first race was mired in some controversy. For starters, NASCAR traces it roots back to Prohibition days, when cars were tinkered with to make them travel faster than the police cars that chased them, Sooter said.

Glenn Dunnaway supposedly beat Roper by three laps and was declared the winner, Sooter said. However, rules clearly prohibited modifications and, upon inspection of Dunnaway's car, it was found that the car's owner had shored up the chassis by spreading the rear springs, a favorite maneuver by bootleggers.

Thus, officials declared Roper, then 31, the winner of the $2,000 prize, a position he claimed to Mills he had all along, Mills said. According to a lap clicker in his car, Roper said he was one lap ahead of Dunnaway the whole time and officials miscounted Dunnaway's laps.

Roper would compete in just one more NASCAR race, winning $50 for finishing 15th at a Hillsboro, N.C., speedway before coming back to Kansas, where he raced stock and midget cars across the Midwest until the mid-1950s - never participating in a NASCAR-sanctioned race again, according to The Kansan.

Roper became a professional flagman and built racecars before moving to Texas to raise horses, Mills said.

Halstead always his home

Roper considered Mills and his brother, Bryson, his family. Sick from cancer, he called the Millses to bring him home.

"I don't want to die in Texas," Mills said Roper told them, adding that Roper died two weeks later on June 23, 2000, in Newton - 51 years after the big race.

They buried him in Halstead Cemetery, he said.

Sooter said he hoped to someday have more of a dedication to Roper's life at the Halstead Museum, as well as develop a website about Roper's life.

He also wants to get Roper in the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame. Roper already is inducted into the High Banks Hall of Fame in Belleville. He also was honored at a NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway in 1998 and, in 1999 the NAPA 500 trophy was named in his honor.

"He was the first and no one, at the time, realized what it would lead to," Sooter said of NASCAR's current popularity. "I'm so proud that he had an influence in NASCAR."