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20 JULY 1952 · PLAYLAND PARK, SOUTH BEND (BOUNDARY)
There was exactly one NASCAR Grand National race on this valley's ground, and it is dated to the day: Sunday, 20 July 1952, at Playland Park, South Bend — race 22 of the 1952 Grand National season. Tim Flock won it in a 1951 Hudson, over Lee Petty second; Herb Thomas won the pole; the top ten ran Flock, Petty, Bub King, Herschel Buchanan, Dick Passwater, Gene Comstock, Glen Larsen, J. O. Staton, Bucky Sager and Red Duvall, over 100 laps for a $3,425 purse on the season record. The circuit record's colour for the day — a crash-filled round, Flock winning after barging past Herb Thomas — stands as that record gives it. No second Grand National race was ever scheduled at Playland or anywhere else in St. Joseph County: the track lists and the 1952 season record return this one date and no other, and the leg prints it at exactly that size — a one-race city, not a NASCAR tradition. The Osceola share is nil as a venue and real as an audience: the race ran in South Bend, ten miles west of Osceola's main street, on the Lincolnway corridor Osceola drivers used; no Osceola driver is named in the finishing record reached.
Sources: 1952 NASCAR Grand National Series season record (race 22, July 20, 1952, South Bend / Playland Park; Flock, Hudson, 100 laps, $3,425; top-ten finishers as above); Playland Park park history (NASCAR race July 20, 1952; Flock first, Petty second, Thomas pole); Motor Sport Magazine circuit database (the crash-filled 1952 Grand National round), read November 2026.