Long time coming, but N-J's Bernard 'Benny' Kahn gets his racing recognition | KEN WILLIS
Here’s one for the older locals, as well as a throwback for the longer of longtime NASCAR fans who recall getting their sporting info from a newspaper.
Benny Kahn.
Did that trigger the way-back lobe of your gray matter?
Bernard Kahn (turns out, I’ve learned, he was no fan of “Benny” but went along with it) wrote for our News-Journal from 1941 until his untimely death in 1975, at age 57. Cancer.
His column — "It Says Here" — appeared some 320 days a year in both the Morning Journal and the old Evening News.
Those 34 years at the N-J weren’t consecutive, due to two years during WWII when he wrote for Stars & Stripes. But as a slice of time to be alive and contribute to his community, it’s hard to beat those few decades when Kahn chronicled and helped nurture the birth, toddler years, and young adulthood of NASCAR.
For that, he was finally — and I do mean finally — recognized by the descendants of his peers. On the Saturday before the Daytona 500, Benny (sorry, old habit) was announced as the newest recipient of the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence.
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His name and likeness is now on the “big board” of previous honorees, a board that will soon hang in its forever home at the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the impressive and still-rather-new addition to Speedway property, just outside Turn 4.
Not sure if Benny would want this pinned to his legacy, but his work and wordsmith’s finesse certainly played a role in two local youngsters who would follow his footsteps, deciding they wanted to do what he did for “work” — our former motorsports guy, Godwin Kelly, and yours truly.
Upon realizing that, yes indeed, Benny’s name was nowhere to be found on the roll call of honorees, we put on our best lobbying boots and pushed and prodded fellow voters.
That Benny would have to follow us in receiving the national motorsports media honor is borderline criminal, I have to admit, but the oversight (what else could it have been?) has been corrected with the annual vote of previous honorees to bring in a new member.
Benny’s children — Jeff, Win and Robin — couldn’t have been more thrilled and thankful.
“One of Dad's final wishes was the request that we not forget him,” Jeff told us. “Forty-eight years after he left this mortal coil, you and Godwin remembered him. The Kahn family is ever so grateful.”
The award was started in 1969 and Benny is the 43rd winner — some years there was no winner, and in a couple of recent years, after several ballots couldn’t break ties, there were two. Bloys Britt, of the AP, was first, and along the way Chris Economaki, Mike Joy, Eli Gold, Bob Varsha, Sam Posey and Tom Higgins were among those honored.
Benny should’ve probably been among the first. He was literally there at the beginning of NASCAR, as part of the group that met for four days at the Streamline Hotel to forge a working constitution and assign Big Bill France with leadership duties. He was there through the last decade of beach racing and the building of the Speedway.
And he was obviously there at the first Daytona 500. That race's outcome wasn’t determined until three days of eyeballing amateur photography of the inches-apart finish between Lee Petty and the original “winner,” Johnny Beauchamp. Petty stayed in town during that time, not leaving until justice was served.
Guess who personally dished it up to Petty? That’s right, our man Bernard Kahn.
This from a News-Journal column at the time …
Petty received the news of his triumph in a telephone call from this writer. He was eating supper with his wife at a beach motel.
“I was never worried,” replied Petty, “but sure am happy to get it over with.”
Did Petty plan to rush down to NASCAR headquarters and pick up the winning check and trophy?
“I’m still eating my supper and I’m going to finish it,” said Lee. “This is a pretty good piece of ham and, man, I’m hungry. Then I’ll be downtown.”
Yep, a different time.
Several years back, the News-Journal was printing a section to celebrate 75 years of ownership by the Davidson family. I was given the duty of writing about Benny for that section, an assignment that led to me burying myself in his old clip files, rolling through old columns (he did at least five a week) but especially being drawn to those away from racing.
Especially his columns on fishing and the things you encounter during a blissful day on or near the water.
Among the gems ….
The loggerhead is a critter who will leave you alone if you will just extend to him the same courtesy. He has a beak hard as a jail door and no teeth. Still, the turtle eats well on hermit crabs, shellfish and Portuguese men o' war, of all gourmet treats.
And this …
It is relaxing to sit on a shoreside palm stump with half-shut eyes and, in utter silence, to hear the waves lapping at your feet. You think of distant things and how it came to be that you grew up in such a delightful place as Daytona Beach.
But it was something entirely less peaceful, the racetrack, where Benny Kahn’s work was most noteworthy and, now, more completely respected. After his death, another local legend, car builder Smokey Yunick, wrote a letter to the editor that probably sums it up best.
“Let me say for the racers and myself, we thought an awful lot of him. Maybe we didn’t always agree with him but that didn’t affect our respect and regard for him. He was considered a racer by the racers …
“He helped racing come from the wild, hard-drinking, irresponsible second-class citizen stage to where it is now. In short, he gave us some class, which we badly needed.”
— Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Early NASCAR chronicler Bernard Kahn finally gets his due | KEN WILLIS
