In 1963, Warren Mansfield was looking over the magazine rack at his local Rexall drugstore in Woodbury, Conn., when he came across a copy of Motor Trend magazine. He opened the magazine to an article about the Daytona 500 race where he found an eye-catching head-on picture of five Fords, nose-to-tail, with the headline, “Ford sweeps the Daytona 500 first 5-places.” Just 15 years old at the time, Warren already had the car bug and knew enough about NASCAR to realize Ford had done something that no automobile manufacturer had ever done before at the Daytona 500. To say Ford dominated the race is an understatement. Tiny Lind won the race followed by Fred Lorenzen in second, Ned Jarrett in third, Nelson Stacey in fourth and Dan Gurney in fifth—all in Fords. Never in the history of the Daytona 500 had one manufacturer finished in the top five spots.
Mansfield bought the magazine and after reading the article, became hooked on NASCAR. The article also further cemented his affection for the Blue Oval brand.
Now 61 years later, much has changed for Mansfield, Ford and NASCAR. But Mansfield still has fond memories of the day he came across that magazine at the Rexall drugstore. He’s reread the article several times and remains shocked at the outcome of the 1963 Daytona 500, much like other NASCAR fans who had the opportunity to read about the race, see the race in person or watch it on ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
