Union 76 Racing Gasoline

I was working flagging/communications at 24 Hours of Daytona in '70 and the street car I drove at that time was a '70 Dodge Charger R/T (wish I still had that car). A couple of days before the race, I drove my car out onto the track and made a slow lap(even stopped on the apron between turns 3 and 4 and crawled to the top of the turn, you couldn't stand up and do that). The track management was far less restrictive in those days. When I got to the pit area, I pulled in to the Union 76 station which was there at the time, noticed that the price of racing gas was $1.75/gallon (I think regular gas price then was around $ .75/gal.), so decided I would pay the price and try some. I filled the car up (18-20 gal.) myself since it appeared to be self-serve, went inside the station to pay, and the only guy there said they weren't allowed to sell the gas and had no facilities for collecting any money..........so I told him I had just filled my car and what should I do? His only comment was, "have a good time, compliments of Union 76". Those were the "good old days" when everything was less restrictive..........don't believe you could do that today.
updated by @ernest-sutton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

In those days, I could buy Sunoco pump-grade gas at around 100+ octane and I believe the Union 76 racing gas was around 108-110. The Charger ran good on the Sunoco 260 (as it was called then), so any better performance on the racing gas was probably just my imagination. Sunoco had pumps back then which you could dial up your own blend of fuel (from Sunoco 190 on the low side to Sunoco 260 on the high side). I was still living in SW Georgia then and could only find the Sunoco stations in Florida. And Robbie, no one ever told me if the racing gas at the endurance races was the same octane as the racing gas at NASCAR races.........I just always assumed it was............maybe someone can give us the answer to that one.

By the way, Tim, I'm sure there's not much of anything I can tell you about that '70 Charger R/T what with your Mopar experience..........but I did love driving that car........had the 150 mph speedometer, 440 w/1 4-bbl. (rated at 375 hp), positraction rear end, automatic trans. I always wished I had gotten the six-pack, but it would still get you down the road pretty good. Top end on that car got a little scary as it would get to feeling pretty light..........if someone wanted to run at top speed, it would have been better to lower the front end a little. Tim Leeming said:

How did that racing fuel perform in that Charger? Yes, sir, I wish I had my old cars back too, especially after watching some of that Barrett-Jackson auction this weekend. My '66 Plymouth Satellite, my '69 Road Runner, my '70 Road Runner, my '71 Satellite, '72, Fury, '74, '75 and '76 Chargers, my 1978 Dodge Magnum with the t-tops. Notice a MOPAR trend there???? lol
Thanks for sharing that story. I'm looking forward to hearing some more.
Tim

Priceless Emest that`s vintage at it`s best try that today with Nascar i don`t think the story would be the same i love that 70`s story

I tried to add this to my last entry but wasn't successful..........one little correction.....I believe that rear end was called a limited-slip differential.....I think positraction wa a GM term. The movie that prompted me to buy that car was Bullitt..........I liked McQueen's Mustang, but I needed something wih a little more room.....and I sure did like that Charger. I believe it was a '68 or '69, but except for cosmetically, there wasn't much difference in those 3 years. I did add Hooker headers, but Dodge had already made it a good-performimg car....so not sure that added much performance, either.