The (almost) return of Curtis Turner

As old-school race fans know, Curtis Turner was banned by Bill France Sr. in 1961. It wasn't until 1965 that Pops was reinstated by NASCAR. He made his first start after the 4 year absence in the Southern 500 at Darlington.

But did you know, he originally planned to make his return on August 14, 1965 - about 3 weeks earlier elsewhere in South Carolina driving for the most unlikely of car owners?

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-almost-return-of-curtis-turner.html

Funny how the deal with Richard's 1965 obligations following the return of Chrysler from their boycott affected who appeared in the #43 when and where.

I was sitting in the bleachers at the half-mile Richmond dirt track on Sunday, September 18, 1965 and the Petty car wasn't expected to run. Just before qualifying, low and behold, the #43 suddenly appeared coming into the backstretch gate on a trailer towed by the Petty bob truck.

The entire facility shook with the fans roaring their approval. Funny thing, though - turned out to be LeeRoy Yarbrough who'd wheel the Petty blue #43 at Richmond that day, finishing 34th after crashing out.

While living in Greensboro, NC in the early 1980s and managing the Wrangler Jeans / Dale Earnhardt NASCAR program, we attended a 2nd grade parent/teacher conference at General Greene Elementary School.

When the very strict, prim and proper 2nd grade teacher found out I worked in racing, she allowed that she had once assisted Curtis Turner to sneak away from a party in the trunk of her car.

It's a small world!

I learned about Lee Roy driving the 43 about 2 years ago. Figured it had to do with Richard's drag racing schedule - but was never certain of it. I'm still not. I longed for a photo from that race. And I think it was you Dave who posted one here of the wrecked 43 after LRY popped a utility pole in the infield.

I'm now seeking a pic of Curtis in the Petty Plymouth. I don't know if it was numbered 43 - it likely was since PE was only fielding one car that season.

Funny thing, too, about that September 18, 1965 Richmond race - Curtis finished next to last in 36th place driving a second Junior Johnson Ford #2. Junior finished 3rd in his primary car Ford #26.

Finishing dead last, in 37th place, was Cale Yarborough in a car fielded by Kenny Myler, Maurice Petty's future father-in-law!

Chase, I don't think I posted the LeeRoy pic... maybe Ray Lamm?? I'd like to see it though.

BTW, LeeRoy had driven the night before at Old Dominion Speedway, Manassas, Va. in a Sam Fogle Ford - a race won by Richard. I am picturing Richmond promoter, Paul Sawyer at Manassas offering the Pettys a substantial sum to bring the car to Richmond next day and put LeeRoy in it.

So, is the door on display at the NASCAR Hall of Fame that Buzz McKim says came from the LeeRoy Yarbrough wreck of the Petty #43 at Richmond in Sept 1965 the Billy Biscoe door???

We currently have some items from the recent American Pickers show on display at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and a few of them have interesting histories.

Do you remember the twisted seat from the 1982 Daytona 500 featured in the show? It came out of a car owned by Tiger Tom Pistone and driven by Tighe Scott from Pen Argyl, Pa. Scott blew a tire and hit the wall on Lap 81 knocking him out of the race. In a twist of irony, I did all the sign painting on that car in January 1982 for Tom when I had my sign business in Florida.

Another item that has a great story to tell is the Richard Petty car door. It is badly bent and after some detective work here at the Hall, we solved the mystery of how it got in that shape. In September 1965, Lee Roy Yarbrough drove the #43 in a race at Richmond, Va. in place of Richard. During a caution period in the race, Yarbrough slid off the track and hit a light pole in the infield area of the track, ending his chances to finish the race. The damage to the door is indicative of a meeting with something tall, unmoving and narrow, like a light pole.

Both of these artifacts were showcased on HISTORYs American Pickers in the NASCAR Challenge episode. Let us know what you thought of the show!

I thought it was agreed the Pickers door came from a Jim Paschal #43 Petty Plymouth. Billy Biscoe, right?

So, I guess Billy Biscoe needs to update us if that is his door and Buz is saying something different than what we thought we knew..

Here's the actual photo of the wrecked LeeRoy Yarbrough driven #43 at Richmond on September 18, 1965 as posted by member Ancrdave on the website KARNAC.com with the member's description.

Sure appears to me the front end of the car hit the pole, not the door. I question the statement by Buz McKim at NHOF after seeing the actual photo. I'm not sure what is going on here, but it wouldn't be the first time we've gotten really bad info from the HOF.

Love those big ole dirt screens on LeeRoy's and Tiny's cars!

The photo with the #43 was taken on 9/18/1965 at the Capital City 300 at what was the called Atlantic Rural Fairgrounds in Richmond, VA... At that time the track was still 1/2 mile dirt... Richard Petty and Chrysler had just returned from their boycott of NASCAR, but Petty had a drag racing commitment... The car was assigned to Lee Roy Yarbrough, the only time he drove for Petty Enterprises... There had been a big storm early in the afternoon and the pit area was extremely muddy... After Yarbrough made a pit stop, he slid in the mud and whacked the light pole head-on....
Check out the second picture... four laps later, Tiny Lund also slid in the mud coming off pit road and hit the same light pole tearing the drivers door right off the car.

That's the photo I was referring to. Pretty sure I got it from somewhere other than that site. I don't have it here at work. Either way, you now have it. But no question about it - the Biscoe door in the NHOF is 100% NOT from the Lee Roy car. Dinged up or not, the font doesn't even match.

After seeing the photo of LeeRoy's wreck, I'd have to recommend ScoobyDoo and his mystery solving gang over the gang at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

I challenge every single reader to tell me how the door in the Buz McKim NASCAR Hall of Fame photo got dented in the head on wreck by LeeRoy at Richmond.

Here is the post where BB affirmed the Pickers door came from a Jim Paschal car.

http://racersreunion.com/community/forum/current-nascar/11113/could-kurt-busch-land-nascars-most-legendary-ride

I'm with you, Chase. I continue to ask what the heck that bunch at the NASCAR Hall of Fame is doing besides passing out a bunch of misinformation?

So sad to see our sport's history so screwed up by those folks.

I guess we need to encourage NASCAR HOF staff to read RR posts. I'm curious to see what Billy has to say about them promoting his door as off the LeeRoy ride.

I'm with you all the way, PattyKay. No way a head on crash into the light pole caused the damage to the door as explained by the Hall of Fame. Obviously, Buz McKim and his "detectives" never bothered to look at the actual photo(s) taken at Richmond.

Every time I am questioned as to why I feel like I do about the NASCAR Hall of Fame, I point to crud like this. The information being disseminated from the place is highly questionable.

They would be well served to invest in a complete set of Bob Hoffman's and Benny Phillips' Southern MotorSports Journals (which is where I believe the photo I posted originated) and Hank Schoolfield's Southern MotoRacing from the period. Having been a subscriber to SMJ at the time, I can vouch that their race coverage and photos were excellent. Their March 1965 Richmond photo sequence of Dick Hutcherson rolling and then scrambling up the old wooden fence in turn 1 is incomparable and priceless. Also, both the Richmond morning and afternoon paper extensively covered the races there with reporters and photographers in 1965. Our family friend, Don Pennell shot many 1960s Richmond races for Richmond Newspapers, Inc. at the time. And, they do have archives.

Wouldn't THAT idea make a world of sense? Have the NHOF invest in the purchase and digitization of periodicals that covered the sport better than NASCAR's own leadership/statisticians? SMJ, SMR, GNS/WCS, Stock Car Racing magazine, etc. Imagine the usefulness to fans, historians, bloggers, authors, etc. if NHOF had a digital 'reading room' with all that info available, tagged, and searchable. Rather than spend frivolous money on "Hashtag NASCAR" Twitter promotions screamed at us by Adam Alexander, I'd prefer NASCAR make a grant to the NHOF to work with Google for this type of curated offering.

What a stupendous idea, Chase. A digitized racing periodical project by the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

That sounds like a venture every race fan and historian could/would support.

How I wish I'd saved my SMJs and SMRs. I envy folks like Dennis Andrews and NB Arnold and other members here when they reference the coverage of a particular race from one of those publications.

I can still picture the 1965 sequence in SMJ, too, of Gene Hobby rolling at Occoneechee/Orange/Hillsborough. What was so great about those publications is that sometimes they'd have as many photos and great coverage from the weekly tracks as they did of the big events.

These days I don't have a clue who the big dogs are at the weekly tracks.

Rick Houston owns a collection of GNS / WCS. Not sure how far into NASCAR Scene he has. But he has told me he owns a full copy of all those early issues. As a bachelor, I held onto multi-years worth of SMR and GNS/WCS. Kept them in brown grocery sacks by year. New bride (and not a fan of racing OR pack-ratting) looked around, wrinkled her nose as she said hmmm, and next thing I know they went to the recycling bin.

I've got maybe 15-20 individual issues from memorable races / events. And I clipped every Petty related page I could. But the rest have now likely composted or been recycled into something else.

The Belk Library at Boone, North Carolina's Appalachian State University some years ago embarked on a project to accumulate stock car racing periodicals, books, articles and photos. Deb Williams even taught a motorsports history course for them.

Here's the web site for their efforts:

http://collections.library.appstate.edu/stockcar/index.html

One of their collections is the Dick Beaty Collection, donated by his children.

I also see that Raymond Parks' widow donated her collection to this venture.

Stock Car Racing Collection Advisory Committee Members

Grey Abercrombie

Johnny Bruce

Vaughn Christian

Garry Hill

Doug Rice

Jimmy Spencer

Ben Trout

Deb Williams

Chris Economaki, member emeritus

At the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame, we just announced Saturday that we are building a media library called 'The Jimmy Mosteller Memorial Racing Library'. Not only will it feature books, photos, programs, etc, etc, but it will also feature ALL of Jimmy Mosteller's personal achievements, awards, andmemorabilia. The Mosteller family has agreed to donate EVERYTHING!! We hope to have this new addition built by next year, as it will take a bit of change to completely add on another room to the museum.

Also...that was a greatarticleyou posted! I had no idea, that Red Vogt had any involvment with the Petty's. I know the last car he built was in 68', but I thought it was on the small scale. But why didn't Maurice or Dale build the car?? Were the three all busy dragging and old man Lee wanted to keep the Nascar operation alive or what?

-Cody

Thanks Cody. Really appreciate your saying that. With Lee and Curtis both gone, Richard busy, and Maurice off radar, its tough to know the true story. My bet is that PE was still busy with building straight line cars - for Richard and maybe for others. When the Chrysler boycott was lifted, I guess it was easier to outsource the build in the short-run than to rally everyone back and maybe delay Richard's return to the ovals.

NHOF Richard Petty #43 door??
Grand National Race No.7
500 Laps at Bristol Int'l Speedway
Bristol, TN
"Southeastern 500"
250 Miles on Half-mile Paved Track
March 19, 1967
1st Place - # 6 David Pearson Cotton Owens '67 Dodge
On 4th lap Joe Ed Newbert #86 blew an engine and spins as Richard Petty narrowly misses him.
36th Place - #86 Joe Ed Newbert '65 Chevrolet.
On Lap 6 Richard Petty crashed #43 Petty Engineering '67 Plymouth

Finish 36th Place

Listed on Pages 122-123 in Greg Fielden's Volume 3, Forty Years of Stock Car Racing - Big Bucks and Boycotts 1965-1971
Photos #1 - #3 On 4th lap Joe Ed Newbert #86 blew an engine and spins as Richard Petty narrowly misses him

The above 1967 photos of the Richard Petty's funny looking #43 numbers located on the driver's door and roof are the only example I can find.
The Richard Petty's regular looking #43 number located on the trunk is the regular example found on the doors, roof and trunk of other 1967 Richard Petty race cars.

Interesting stuff, Dennis. I was at that race and filmed this exact crash on color 8mm movie film that was destroyed in 1997 when a fire burned the Dave (Bud) Lindeman warehouse in Ohio where it had been stored to use for NASCAR 1998 50th Anniversary presentations.

According to the book, "Cars of the King" the odd font was used a few times by the Petty's, they thought about keeping it but later changed their minds.

I thought the door came from the 1963 car. Tim Leeming saw the door get painted at a Burnside Plymouth in Columbia, S.C. Richard won the race that night. This is Tims photo from the day.

Thanks for contributing to the door discussion, David.

@ Dave Fulton,I really enjoy the racing videos that featured Bud Lindemann,"Car And Track Productions".What a shame to hear of the videos being destroyed.Wiki has Bud's real name as Gordon.Am I talking about a different person that you are?

A Sumter, South Carolina-based would-be-rival of NASCAR group was all set to go, during this same time frame......hoping to captilzie on the 1965, Chrysler boycott, and the Curtis Turner ban-for-life, this group was to FEATURE Turner as a headliner. Big Bill, at the last moment, allowed Curtis back in, and the rival group never got off the ground.

Bobby, was that the Crawfish Crider group?

Same person.Bud had passed away in 1983 , and his son, Dave was running the company when it burned. Dave retired to Florida after the fire in 1997.

Yep, I think it was Dave, couple of guys from Sumter and Crawfish from Charleston. It' the main reason Pops got back in when he did.

Thanks, Bobby.

For those who have never read it, the link below will take you to a recounting of the April Fool's Day 1962 stock car race Curtis Turner promoted at Virginia International Raceway in direct competition with the NASCAR Grand National race the same day up the road in Richmond.

http://www.virhistory.com/vir/62-stock/index.htm

From 2011:

Reply by toomuchcountry on December 13, 2011 at 11:58pm

Jim Paschal won driving 43 for Petty Enterprises. Twice - back in 1963.
Reply
Message
Permalink Reply by Billy Biscoe (arustyracer) on December 14, 2011 at 6:57am
TMC: there your answer to my past post about "it's just a dam door". J/P was the team driver from that era that door will be showcased in the NASCAR H O F.

the petty door is from a 1963 plymouth ,check out the web,petty plymouths sponsored by burnside chrysler. sorry after closer inspection the '63 door has a slightly different font style. my mistake.

One of Curtis Turner's first races back was Firecracker race, July ( what year) in Petty Fury, fielded by Petty Ent.

Thanks, Perry.

This is the account Chase(TMC) has posted on his Bench Racing blog as published on August 15, 1965 in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal and retrieved from Google News Archives: