Al Keller and NASCAR's First Road Course Race on an Airport Runway in 1954

• In June 1954, Bill France took his NASCAR flagship series to Linden, N.J., where a 50-lap race was scheduled on a makeshift track at the Linden airport.

• In a true rarity, the race was won by a foreign-built car, as Al Keller took the checkered flag in a Jaguar XK120.

• The Jag was one of 21 foreign cars in the 43-car field as organizers tried to add an “international” flavor to a race called the International 100.

By 1954, NASCAR had established its lead series, Grand National, with a busy schedule stretching from February to October and from Florida to the Northeast and across the country to California.

But NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. wasn’t satisfied.

France continued to push into new territories. In June 1954, he took his flagship series to Linden, N.J., where a 50-lap race was scheduled on a makeshift track at the Linden airport. It wouldn’t be the first or the last time an airport site hosted an automobile race, but it was a breakthrough of sorts for France. For the first time in six seasons, his series would race on a road course, albeit an artificial one pieced together from airport runways.

And that wasn’t the only thing historic about the day. In a true rarity, the race was won by a foreign-built car. Al Keller took the checkered flag in a Jaguar XK120. The Jag was one of 21 foreign cars in the 43-car field as organizers tried to add an “international” flavor to a race called the International 100.

Although foreign makes have been sprinkled in some Cup Series fields, it was 2007 before Toyota made the big “foreign-car” breakthrough, joining NASCAR’s top series with a full-blown effort. NASCAR had built its platform on competition matching American-made sedans, and Toyota’s arrival sparked significant backlash, particularly among the more traditionalist wing of the fan base.

There is no evidence there were big protests in Linden, N.Y. when 43 drivers took the green flag in search of a $1,000 first-place prize. Keller and his Jaguar weren’t alone in the “foreign” group. Also entered were Austin Healey, MG, Porsche and a lone Morgan.

Keller had raced sporadically in NASCAR. Earlier that season, he scored the only other Cup victory of his career, winning on the half-mile dirt at Savannah, Ga. On that race day he drove a Hudson Hornet.

Keller had significant competition from two of the NASCAR stars of the 1950s. He took the lead with 28 laps remaining and led the rest of the way after NASCAR regulars Herb Thomas, who had won the series title the year before, and Buck Baker, who would be the champion in 1956 and 1957, swapped the lead over the first half of the race.

Keller crossed the finish line first in front of Joe Eubanks, the only other driver on the lead lap. Eubanks drove a Hudson.

The Linden road-course experiment didn’t bear fruit. The 1954 race, the 18th of that season, was the only Cup event held there.

It was a brief moment in the NASCAR sun for Keller, a native of Buffalo, N.Y. who soon would veer away from stock cars and concentrate on IndyCar racing. He died after a crash in an Indy car race at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in 1961.