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| Born | June 7, 1911 Albany, New York |
| Died | December 9, 1966 (age 55) Norwalk, Connecticut |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Organization | World Stock Car Championship |
| Title | Chief Executive Officer |
| Predecessor | Founder |
| Successor | Jack Crawford |
| Spouse(s) | Anne Reynolds |
| Children | Jack Crawford Elliot Crawford, Jr. |
Elliott Walter Crawford (June 7, 1911 - December 9, 1966) was an American racing driver, mechanic, promoter, and businessman. He is best known as the founder of the World Stock Car Championship, the premier sanctioning body for U.S. stock car racing.
Early Life[edit | edit source]
Crawford was born in Albany, New York, the son of Irena Kurowski, an immigrant from Poland, and Walter Crawford. As a teenager, Crawford would often skip school to race the family's Chevrolet Superior at the board track near Atlantic City. A crash during a race in July 1928 destroyed the car and caused a severe falling out between father and son; the younger Crawford left to stay with relatives in Connecticut that same day, and the two would not speak for nearly twenty years.
After working several different jobs throughout the late 1920's, Crawford took a gamble and bought a service station in Westport, Connecticut, a small farming community that was growing rapidly as a center for artists. Crawford rapidly grew his fledgling business during the Great Depression by providing service to construction crews building the new Merritt Parkway; he would open a small restaurant next to his service station in 1936, and opened a second service station in Stamford in 1938.
Early Racing Career[edit | edit source]
On May 15, 1937, the first stock car race in Connecticut was held on the streets of Stratford; promoter John Black worked with the city to provide a $3000 purse, with $1000 going to the race winner. The race, which was open to all street-legal family sedans sanctioned by AAA from 1936 and 1937, ran for 300 miles and was marred by controversy. Several scoring controversies and accusations of bias caused multiple drivers to protest the results, and the city lost around $10,000. Crawford finished fourth.
Black reached out to Crawford and the pair arranged for another stock car race to be held at the West Haven Speedway, a small dirt track located in nearby West Haven on the grounds of the Savin Rock Amusement Park. This event proved more successful, with the track turning a modest profit and track officials requesting the duo promote more stock car races. The duo again attempted to promote a street race in Stratford, but another significant financial loss caused Black to retire from promoting and return to racing. Crawford promoted multiple races in Stratford and West Haven in 1938; he would race in many of the events, and won the June race in West Haven and August race in Stratford in 1939. In 1940, he opened the first asphalt-paved speedway in the United States in Thompson. Thompson would host mostly midget and sprint car racing until 1946.
Crawford continued to promote stock car racing along the Connecticut shoreline until 1941; he was in the process of planning the first of 1942's events when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Racing activity all but completely stopped during World War II; Crawford worked at Bridgeport Army Airfield 3 supporting the war effort while his wife Anne ran the service stations. Crawford would meet George Johnson at the airfield in 1944; Johnson's father was a mechanic in Massachusetts who built engines for local sprint car drivers. Johnson would become Crawford's race mechanic after the war.
When motorsports activities resumed in 1946, Crawford hosted the first Icebreaker Sweepstakes at Thompson on March 10, 1946. It was the first stock car race held at the track.
National Stock Car Series[edit | edit source]
Crawford soon realized the need for promoters to organize their efforts. In many cases, unethical promoters would often leave with the money prior to drivers being paid. Other issues, such as varying specifications between tracks, highlighted further need for a unified set of rules and regulations. On November 4, 1948, Crawford organized a meeting of drivers, mechanics, promoters, and car owners at The Inn at Longshore in Wesport; this meeting resulted in the formation of the National Stock Car Series.
The early years of the series focused on short paved ovals and dirt tracks; the series ran street races on the dirt roads near North Bend, Indiana. By 1955, recognizing the series needed a permanent road racing facility, Crawford began building a 1.53-mile road course in Lakeville, Connecticut. Lime Rock Park opened for racing in 1957 and hosted the series' first race on a purpose-built road course on Labor Day of that same year. It has been considered among the series' premier events since its inception.
Crawford oversaw aggressive expansion of the schedule, both in terms of number and location of races. In the first ten years of operation, the National Stock Car Series schedule expanded from ten races to over fifty, and races were held across the continental United States and Canada. Crawford notably did not exclude women or black drivers from his series, an unusual stance among stock car series at the time. This would affect the series' popularity in the South, as several tracks bristled at the idea of allowing either black or female drivers to compete in the same divisions as white men. Several drivers had to ask Crawford to personally ensure their entrance to a race at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in 1959. That same year, he oversaw the series' first race on a true superspeedway, as stock cars raced for the first time on the newly opened Daytona International Speedway.