Racing History Minute - October 28, 1961

The 1961 season, which had started on a sad note with Lee Petty's career ending crash in a qualifying race at Daytona in February, was winding down when the drivers arrived at Greenville-Pickens Speedway for a 200 lap/100 mile race on the half-mile dirt track.

Buck Baker qualified his Chrysler on the pole with a speed of 66.667 mph. Joe Weatherly would start second in his Bud Moore Pontiac, Junior Johnson third in the Holly Farms Pontiac, Jimmy Pardue in his own Chevy would roll off fourth and Fireball Roberts in another Holly Farms Pontiac would start fifth. There were only 18 entries to the event.

Buck Baker would take the lead right off and stay there for 98 laps before the clutch in his number 86 Chrysler gave it up and forced the Charlotte driver to park it for the remainder of the race. Junior Johnson took over at that point and would lead until lap 116 before giving way to Joe Weatherly in that speedy Pontiac. Weatherly would continue to build a lead and, with 10 laps to go, appeared certain to win the race.

With 8 laps remaining, the number 8 Pontiac of Weatherly bobbled and wiggled as Lil Joe fought to hold on to it as a tire blew. Joe bolted into the pits and changed the flat tire but lost a lap in the process. With 7 laps remaining, he roared back onto the track in a cloud of dust but he didn't have enough time to run down Junior. Junior averaged 63.346 mph winning the race.

With only one race remaining on the schedule for the season, Ned Jarrett, who wound up sixth in this race left Greenville-Pickens still leading the points. Ned would finish third in the race at Orange Speedway the next day to claim the 1961 title, his first of two.

Finishing order:

1. Junior Johnson, Holly Farms Pontiac, winning $950.00

2. Joe Weatherly, Bud Moore Pontiac, winning $625.00 (1-lap down)

3. Rex White, White-Clements Chevrolet, winning $425.00 (2-laps down)

4. Richard Petty Petty Engineering Plymouth, winning $275.00 (5-laps down)

5. Curtis Crider, Crider Mercury, winning $250.00 (8-laps down)

6. Ned Jarrett, Chevrolet

7. Maurice Petty Plymouth

8. Wendell Scott, Chevrolet

9. Joe Lee Johnson, Chevrolet

10. Jim Paschal, Pontiac

11. Herman Beam

12. Lee Reitzel

13. Fred Harb

14. Jack Smith

15. Joe Jones

16. Fireball Roberts

17. Buck Baker

18. Jimmy Pardue

For those interested in certain information, Richard Petty drove the number 42 Plymouth while brother Maurice drove number 43. Also, Jim Paschal was driving a Pontiac owned by Julian Petty.

Honor the past, embrace the present, dream for the future

Race preview from Spartanburg Herald

Race report from Spartanburg Herald

And why did you choose to reference the car numbers for the Petty team cars? Who in the world would be interested in that level of trivia? Ha ha.

The GN guys were participating in on-track action at the established Greenville-Pickens Speedway. Meanwhile, about 2 hours to the northeast up I-85 a young track with some good racing but a mountain of debt was struggling to stay afloat off-the-track. Fast forward about a decade when RJR branded the Winston Cup Series - and its interesting to realize which track continued to host GN/Cup races and which one did not.

Source: Spartanburg Herald

Fascinating stuff.

Maybe we don't give the Pettys enough credit for "Engineering" all those number changes to accumulate points and have Richard in the best ride.