The 1956 NASCAR Grand National Daytona Beach races (both convertible and hardtop), a short film on racing 1956 Chevrolets and the 1956 Southern 500 at Darlington are now all on DVD for the first time ever - only from Rare Sportsfilms!

Performance... Pure Performance tells the story of the first NASCAR convertible race ever run and the 1956 Beach Race the following day. Both races are preceded by the popular speed performance trials on the famous measured mile. Lots of ’56 T-birds are shown, including Ford’s Chuck Daigh driving one with a modified body. Runs of Dan Eames and Murray Hartley are also shown. Saturday’s event is the first NASCAR race ever run in Bill France’s new “Convertible Division”, a series that would only last four years! Joe Weatherly is on the pole, with Jimmy Thompson alongside and Don Oldenberg and Herb Thomas in the second row. Weatherly leads the first six laps until overtaken by Ford teammate Curtis Turner, who is never headed and sets a new 160 mile, 96.11MPH record! Turner, Fireball Roberts and Thomas finish 1-2-3. Next day, the traditional Daytona Grand National Hardtop race is run, with Tim Flock on the pole and Speedy Thompson alongside in big white Kiekhaefer Chryslers. Flock wins, Billy Myers’ #14 Mercury is second and Ralph Moody in #12 Ford is third (even after a rollover), but there is even more action during the race! Most spectacular is Russ Truelove’s crash on the beach straightaway coming into the north turn. His #226 Mercury flips high in the air and does a roll, shedding windshields and parts before coming to rest outside the course! Later, young Junior Johnson rolls his blue #55 Chevy four times near the north end of the beach and climbs out the back window to safety! Other cars you’ll see during the hardtop race are those of Ralph Liguori, Cotton Owens, Blackie Pitt, Ed Kretz and Bob Korf.

Included on this DVD is another film showing the action from other angles and different views. Thunder Beach shows both beach races from the perspective of the Peter DePaolo Ford team of Ralph Moody, Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts and Joe Weatherly. In the Ford film, a Curtis Turner pit stop is shown, and a bigger deal is made of Moody finishing third in the hardtop race after spinning out. Other cars are shown also, such as those of Red Duvall, Bill Brown, Bill Lutz, Marvin Panch, Bill Widenhouse, Lyle Scott, Pat Zocanno, Jack Radtke, Jim Cushman, Eddie Skinner and Walt Shubert. A spectacular shot captures the south turn rollover crash of Jim Wilson and Buddy Krebs!

Not to be outdone, Chevrolet’s film The Big Winner promotes victories in 1955 and 1956 for Chevrolet. Included is Jim Reed driving in a demonstration race at Gardena Stadium on Western Avenue. In-car camera shots of Reed during the race add interest to Chevy’s 1956 racing promotional film.

One of the all-time classic racing films, the 1956 Southern 500 at Darlington is pure nostalgia – mid-1950’s stock car racing at famed Darlington Raceway! All the colorful action of the 7th Annual “Southern 500” can once again be seen as the action took place – over 50 years ago! Sit in on the official qualifications, inspection and work in the garage area. See the annual beauty pageant held the night before the race, and of course, all the great drivers of those days gone by: Paul Goldsmith, Herb Thomas, Marvin Panch, Speedy Thompson, Buck Baker, Tim and Fonty Flock, Lil’ Joe Weatherly, Jim Paschal, Fireball Roberts and Curtis Turner, all driving the cars that made them famous and all in gorgeous COLOR!

Back in the days when cars went racing right off the showroom floor, and before anyone had ever dreamed of Daytona International Speedway, AIMS, AIR or MIS, Darlington was THE superspeedway – the fastest stock car track in the world! For ten years, the Labor Day race at Darlington was the World Series of stock car racing, where asphalt speed records were set and broken again and again. This DVD takes you back to 1950’s NASCAR racing at its best and most exciting!

Thrill as you watch the pace lap and see the field of 70 1956 stock cars take the green flag and head into turn one at 100 MPH! You’ll see plenty of spins and crashes (70 cars at 110 MPH on a 1.4 mile track?), and even a spectacular fire in turn one as a gas tank is ripped from a car and ignites! Three-time winner Herb Thomas hits the guardrail and spins twice, but there’s plenty of pit action, too, as famed mechanic Smokey Yunick installs a new radiator in Herb’s orange #92 so Thomas can go back racing! Hard-driving Curtis Turner in his #99 purple and white Ford sets a new record on his way to a smashing victory in one of the greatest runs for the checkered flag ever seen.