Today when there is a question of a close call at a race, MASCAR simply has someone rerun a tape…as slowly and as many time as needed. But in the early days of
NASCAR, officials had to rely on photographs, often having to wait hours and sometimes days before the were developed.
T. Taylor Warren provided one such photo to NASCAR that ended up helping to decide the winner of the Daytona 500 in 1959.
Warren has been named the 2023 Squier-Hall Award for excellence in the media. He is the first photojournalist to Winn the award that has been named for the award’s first two winners – Ken Squier and Barney Hall.
Warren was photographing races even before there was a NASCAR at the Milwaukee Fairgrounds in 1948. Bill France Sr hired Warren in 1952 to photograph the race on the beach. Once the races moved to the high banks of Daytona International Speedway Warren photographed every race until his death in 2008.
Before NASCAR became a regular part of television programming, it was Warren’s photographs that told the story.
But Warren’s work was not limited to just Daytona and NASCAR; he worked for numerous racing events and publications, bringing the races to life through the camera lens.
Warren’s other honours include the Henry T. McLemore Award from International Motorsports Hall of Fame, the Myers’s Brothers Award from the National Motorsports Press Association, and induction into the NMPA Hall of Fame.
Warren will be honored as a part of the 2023 NASCAR Hall of Fame ceremonies in January and will have an exhibit in the Hall of Fame.