May 5, 1963: Jim Paschal Wins in Petty's Backyard

Tar Heel Speedway near Level Cross NC hosted only three races. All were in the 1963 season, and all were won by Petty Engineering cars - 2 by High Point's Jim Paschal and the third one by The King. Today's blog post is about Paschal's win in round 2 of the three-parter in '63. Read on for more:

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2013/05/may-5-1963-jim-paschal-rumbles-in.html

Great story Chase. I think that was the track I went to a race on Thanksgiving Day in 1963 and Richard won. Not sure, my old memory is getting fuzzy on some things.

Perhaps 2 memories blended into one?

• November 22, 1962 was Thanksgiving Day. The 1st of 3 races at Tar Heel was run that day, and a Petty car did win. But it was Paschal behind the wheel - not Richard. Though in 1962, it was the 3rd race of the 1963 season.
• Richard did win the 3rd of three races run at Tar Heel. And it was the fall of 1963. But it was October 5, 1963 - not Thanksgiving. Unless you started eating your giblet gravy 6 weeks early that year.

Chase, it is very possible that my memories are starting to run together. I remember that my Uncle Bobby found out they were racing up there on Thanksgiving so he talked my mother into me missing Thanksgiving and heading up that way. I remember it was mostly two lane highway and a long trip but when the Petty car won, I was a happy camper. One thing for sure, my Mama didn't allow no giblet gravy eating six weeks early.

I'm going to start signing my posts to you with Bob Hope's old line "Thanks for the Memories".

Thanks, Chase. Found it interesting to read in your blog post about Cliff Stewart. Sometime in late 1987 - early 1988 Cliff was considering another comeback and I went with Ed McLean who used to head up Pontiac's racing program to visit Cliff and be given a personal tour of his furniture factory. Nothing came of the exploratory visit and we wound up linking Morgan Shepherd in a test run for the Heinz Ketchup sponsorship that eventually became the brief return to NASCAR of Rod Osterlund with Hut Stricklin driving.