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Before the Daytona 500 on the 2 1/2-mile banked paved track, NASCAR drivers raced the Beach Course. The course was 4.1 miles; 2 miles run on the hardpacked sand of Daytona Beach connected by loose sand turns to 2 miles of asphalt on A1A. Larry Shurter qualified and raced the Course in 1950 and 1952, finishing 25th and 12th respectively.

The Gallup and Shurter families had been friends since Larry raced with George’s father, Glen and his brother’s Ken and Walt Gallup. The Gallup brothers were already driving midgets at the Woodstock Legion Speedway in Bearsville, N.Y. when Larry Shurter began racing against them in 1938.
The two families and friends stayed the Ocean Heights Motel on Daytona Beach for the 1952 Daytona race. (of Course, there was no partying going on…)

George finished 46 in the 61 car field. He qualified for the 1953 race and finished 19th. George’s stock car racing career ended in the late 1950’s. In the late 1960’s he began racing sport cars and ran successfully until he was in his seventies.

For more about George Gallup‘s racing career and the racing careers of his two son’s Bill and Dick Gallup and forth generation racer, Matthew Gallup, click on Current and “Extended” Family Racing in this website.

1950 Larry Shurter raced Daytona Beach.

In what would become known as the Daytona 500, Larry qualified and raced in the 200 mile Grand National Circuit race at Daytona Beach, Florida. The oval course was slightly over 4 miles – 2 miles on the famous hard packed sand of Daytona Beach and two miles on paved A1A. Qualification was a straight run on the sand which basically meant: the more expensive the car, the faster the qualifying speed. There was no time to be shaved off going into and out of the turns with experience and talent. Larry qualified towards the back in a 40-car start. Positioned behind so many cars, the flying sand was so thick that on some laps the drivers couldn’t see the course or the turns.

The miles of inside and outside trackside could not be patrolled by officials. In many places along the course, the cars roared by within feet of spectators – some of whom had snuck in without paying. (When the 2 ½ mile paved oval opened for its first race in 1959, a tradition began of gatekeepers routinely checking inside trunks and then later, bathrooms of RV’s for stowaways.)

Larry was driving his way up through the field when a sand dune collapsed under a young couple standing too close to the course. They slid down in front of Larry and he yanked the Ford to miss them, getting mired in the loose sand. He lost positions and time. The winning time, set by Harold Kite in a 1949 Lincoln was 2 hours, 26 minutes, 30 seconds. The average speed was 81.75 mph – a new course record. Larry finished in 25th position. They washed the sand and the white shoe polish off – #75 Larry Shurter – which Mavis had painted on their 1949 Ford family- car-trying-be-a-racing-machine and headed north up Route 301 for the 3-day trip home.

1952
In February, Mavis and Larry traveled south to Daytona Beach. They drove a 1952 Oldsmobile belonging to Arlos “Bucky’ Every. Bucky and his brother Don were younger cousins of Mavis and as kids had traveled with Mavis and Larry to many race meets. They both had become winning stock car drivers. Don won 3 features at Middletown and took High Point Champion at Onteora Speedway in 1960.

Again, Mavis painted the number 75 and Shurter name on the new black Olds with removable white shoe polish. Larry qualified in 18th position. The 1950 race had taught him that visibility in the perpetual sandstorm caused by the speeding cars was a major obstacle. He made a visible note of a particular palm coming into the north turn and even if the swirling sand blotted out the course, when he saw the palm tree, he threw the rear end out for the slide into the turn. He thought he was up near the front for a while and old movie clips seemed to suggest 4th or 5th, but then sand crept into the shifter. Each time he shifted, it became harder and so he shifted it once more into high gear and left it there: he didn’t dare try shifting again. He slowly lost positions but was 12th when he saw the checkered flag. The car ahead of Larry was his northeast rival, Frankie Schneider. They had plenty of time in the following days to fix the shifter for the return trip to NY because that’s how long it took Bill France to pay Larry and some other less-than-big-name drivers. Marshall Teague won in a 1952 Hudson. He got paid right away. The purse was a bit over $6000.00. There were no cautions and only 2 lead changes. The average speed was 85mph.

As the family story goes, Bucky’s wife Vivian was not at all happy about having to drive the new family Olds with a sand pitted windshield. Again, as the story goes, the pitted windshield was the last straw for Vivian who never liked racing in any case. Bucky’s racing career was coming to an end, but not his support for the sport. He sponsored Jeff VanSteenburg during part of his racing career. Jeff’s mother Sarah Avery-Miller VanSteenburg and Bucky were first cousins. Sarah, Doris Glass and Mavis Shurter were sisters. Bucky also continued to contribute to racing by quietly slipping a driver and/or owner some cash in the pit areas. Arlos “Bucky” Every remained an avid fan, driving for many a mile to various tracks to watch his favorite sport.

In a sweet turn of racing fate, forty years later, in 1992, Bucky’s son Glenn, was gifted by his wife, Debra, to a weekend at the Skip Barber School of racing in Limerock, Ct. Deb didn’t know she was going to be in the doghouse with her mother-in-law, Vivian, but Glenn was happy. Glenn raced for part of the 1990’s, stopped when his first son Sam was born, and began racing the sport car circuit again in 2017. During the summer of 2023, he raced in England.

Of Debra and Glenn’s two sons, Sam is racing, building his own car and working for Dyson Racing. Matthew, after working as an editor for Field and Stream Magazine has become a freelance editor.

For more about Glenn Every, Sam Every and Jeff VanSteenburg’s racing, click on Current and “Extended” Family Racing in this website.