We are caught in one of those time warps where we return to Ontario Motor Speedway several times as it was the only race run at points in racing history. What we have had so far from that track has been some really interesting stories as well as excellent photos contributed by members. So, today, we are going back to 1974.

The race known as "The Los Angles Times 500" was race number 30 for the 1974 season. The 2.5 mile track would draw 40 entries to qualify. Richard Petty qualified his Dodge on the pole with a speed of 149.940 mph. The Ontario track was much like Indy in that the banking in the turns was very low, almost flat, thus no Daytona or Talladega like speeds for California. A. J. Foyt put the Hoss Ellington Chevy in second starting spot, David Pearson in the Wood Brothers Mercury was third, Bobby Allison in the Penske Matador fourth and Buddy Baker in the Bud Moore Ford was fifth.

Some 43,448 fans witnessed the lead change almost every lap between Allison, Foyt, Pearson, Yarborough, and Petty. There were, in fact, some36 "official lead changes", meaning a different lead crossed the line in first place. This lead changing occurred in 200 laps of racing.

Richard Petty was in the thick of the lead battle with 12 laps to go when the engine in the blue and red Dodge exploded. He would be credited with 15th place but he was the Champion for 1974. Earl Ross was named Rookie of the year at the race but he was concerned that he would not be returning to NASCAR in 1975 because his sponsor, Carling Brewing Company, was withdrawing sponsorship.

After the race, in a routine inspection, the rapid Matador was found to have illegal valvesprings!NASCAR issued a fine of $9,100.00 to Bobby Allison/Roger Penske but allowed Allison to keep the win. Second place finisher, David Pearson, had plenty to say about that. The following is the quote of what Pearsonexpressed afterwards. Read it and think about how things are handled these days and see if you agree not much has changed in NASCAR's selective enforcement of elusive rules.

Quoting David now: "There is no consistency in anything NASCAR does. Last year at Charlotte two cars were cheating and they didn't fine either one of them. They singled out Bobby for this one. I've got no bones to pick with Allison, but the fact remains, it should have been disqualified. That's the way the rules ought to be written. Bobby's car was pronouncedlegal before the race, but its illegal afterwards. Sounds like incompetence to me".

Well, folks, what do you think. Remember, David was saying this in 1974. Does any of it sound familiar to you from current day racing news?

Bobby Allison only said that he shows up with his helmet to drive the car and he had no idea what was under the hood so he knows nothing about the alleged infractions by his team.

Allison did finish 48 seconds ahead of Pearson, mainly for the fact that David had cut down a tire three different times and was always playing catch-up. A.J. Foyt blew the engine in his Ellington Chevy but coasted across the finish line to claim 4th place.

Finishing order:

1. Bobby Allison, Penske Matador, winning $15,125.00

2. David Pearson, Wood Brothers Mercury, winning $9,925.00

3. Cale Yarborough, Junior Johnson Chevy, winning $10,125.00

4. A. J. Foyt, Hoss Ellington Chevrolet, winning $5,725.00 (1 lap down)

5. Buddy Baker, Bud Moore Ford, winning $6,825.00 (3 laps down)

6. Darrell Waltrip

7. Ramo Stott

8. Earl Ross

9. Richie Panch

10, J. D. McDuffie

11.David Sisco

12. Richard Childress

13. Bruce Hill

14. James Hylton

15. Richard Petty

16.Walter Ballard

17.Dave Marcis

18. Don Reynolds

19,Jimmy Insolo

20. Chuck Wahl

21. Frank Warren

22. Glen Francis

23. Ed Negre

24. D. K. Ulrich

25. Jackie Rogers

26.Sonny Easley

27. Don Hill

28.Bill Osborne

29. Cecil Gordon

30. Earl Canavan

31. Walt Price

32. George Follmer

33. Jack McCoy

34. Harry Jefferson

35. Benny Parsons

36. Ray Elder

37.Hugh Pearson

38.John Martin

39.Chuck Bown

40.Carl Adams

The top five in the season points were:

1. Richard Petty, starts 30, wins 10, seasonearnings $432,019.10

2. Cale Yarborough, starts 30, wins 10, season earnings $363,781.10

3.David Pearson, starts 19, wins 7, season earnings $252,818.92

4. Bobby Allison, starts 27, wins 2, season earnings $178,436.90

5.. Benny Parson, starts 30, wins 0, season earnings $185,079.82

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

Associated Press report of penalty that ran in numerous newspapers:

And, the United Press International report with a spelling error - should be Bill Ga Z away.

A few photos from 1974 Ontario event:

Above photos posted at matadorcoupe.com

Above photo posted at How Stuff Works

Above photos from Getty Images

Race program from Motor Racing Programme Covers

A short video recap of Allison's win in the 1974 Ontario race that I believed aired on ESPN during its 1988 Watkins Glen coverage - just a few weeks after Bobby's career ending accident at Pocono.

Ed McDonald - aka zzazazz on Flickr - gave me the green light to include some of his photos from the race.

Foyt racing Allison

Three-wide racing down the straightaway with Foyt, Pearson and Petty

Cale leading 43, Foyt and Allison

Allison leading Cale, Petty and Pearson

Pit action with Cale, Foy and King on pit road at the same time.

Maurice Petty's powerplant goes up in a plume of smoke in his brother's Dodge Charger

Alan Kulwicki is famous for 'inventing' the Polish victory lap following his first Cup win in 1988 at Phoenix. But Bobby looks to have done the same thing at Ontario in 1974.

A couple of wire service race reports - each with some pretty good yet different insights into the stories of the race.

From Daytona Beach Morning Journal

From Gadsden Times

And a few more race shots from Getty Images...

The King gets the spoils of winning the top spot for the race.

Green, green green! The start with Petty and Foyt on the front row.

Cale Yarborough in the Richard Howard / Junior Johnson Carling Beer Chevy.

And Earl Ross in the other Carling Black Label beer Chevy - in what turned out to be his final ride in the car.

Tim Leeming will like this one. Darrell Waltrip in his #95 Chevy leaves pit road with his fuel dump can still attached to the car. Don Reynolds in the 89 is also shown in his pit stall. Reynolds started 4 Cup races and 7 Winston West races in his brief career - mostly ones held at Ontario and Riverside.

The race - and resulting controversy over the Matador's engine - were featured in the April 1975 issue of Stock Car Racing magazine.

great story! I esp. love all the wonderful pics. Smart driving by Bobby.

A couple of more pics.

Thanks to Russ Thompson, here is the SCR article.

1974 LA Times 500 at Ontario from SCR

Sorry, but RR platform doesn't allow embedding of PDFs. You'll have to click the link to read.

What was of even more interest to me in the SCR contribution from Russ Thompson was that it contains the tail end of a story about George Jefferson and brother, Harry winning the Ranier 200 Winston West race at Evergreen. As you know, I'd later sponsor George with Derrike Cope driving under our 7-Eleven banner. Now, if you'll just post the entire story, Chase, I'll be a really, really happy camper!! Here's the ending:

Engine builder, Parky Nall in the story above, had saved George Jefferson's life the previous season when an errant car ran through the infield killing a west coast NASCAR official. Nall would find even greater fame after moving to Charlotte, as noted in the 2005 story below that appeared in the Charlotte Observer in 2005:

Fin St # Driver Sponsor / Owner Car Laps Money Status Led 1 2 97 Harry Jefferson Jefferson Racing (George Jefferson) '73 Ford 200 1,650 running 200 2 7 7 Jack McCoy Noble Auto Parts (Ernie Conn) '74 Dodge 198 1,450 running 0 3 10 26 Carl Joiner Joiner Racing (Carl Joiner) '74 Chevrolet 198 875 running 0 4 5 96 Ray Elder Olympia Beer (Fred Elder) '74 Dodge 197 650 running 0 5 14 84 Jim Danielson Danielson Racing (Louis Nissen) '71 Mercury 195 550 running 0 6 21 01 George Behlman Reed Cams (James Boyd) '72 Chevrolet 194 400 running 0 7 13 29 Ross Surgenor Surgenor Racing '72 Chevrolet 193 350 running 0 8 18 3 Walt Price Empire Auto (Walt Price) '72 Chevrolet 193 330 running 0 9 17 23 John Poyner Poyner Racing '72 Chevrolet 191 320 running 0 10 12 68 Sonny Easley Speedway Engineering (Vic Kurten) '74 Ford 188 300 running 0 11 20 73 Bill Schmitt Schmitt Racing (Bill Schmitt) '72 Chevrolet 187 250 running 0 12 28 55 Fred Connett Connett Racing '72 Chevrolet 186 240 running 0 13 24 21 Richard White Brand Auto Co. '72 Ford 183 220 running 0 14 26 53 Jack Simpson Zezke Towing (DuWayne Wahl) '72 Chevrolet 181 215 running 0 15 19 9 John Dineen Marck Motors (George Stark) '71 Ford 180 200 running 0 16 27 4 Dick Kranzler Kranzler Racing (Dick Kranzler) '73 Chevrolet 180 175 running 0 17 29 09 Vaughn Coogan Coogan Racing '72 Chevrolet 175 165 running 0 18 1 38 Jimmy Insolo Martin's Union 76 (Roger Paquette) '73 Chevrolet 167 260 running 0 19 22 82 Ron Gautsche Tognotti's Auto World (Rolland Gautsche) '71 Ford 157 155 running 0 20 9 41 Ernie Stierly Allied Plating (Ernie Stierly / Jack D. McCoy) '72 Chevrolet 154 150 oil pressure 0 21 25 45 Bruce Blodgett Blodgett Racing (Bruce Blodgett) '71 Ford 134 145 running 0 22 8 10 Leon Fox Fox Racing (Leon Fox) '72 Chevrolet 108 140 running 0 23 4 1 Don Hall Hall Racing (Gerald Craker) '72 Chevrolet 86 135 crash 0 24 15 64 Markey James James Racing (Markey James) '72 Chevrolet 80 130 engine 0 25 16 31 Jim Boyd Boyd Trucking (Jim Boyd) '73 Dodge 52 125 engine 0 26 23 71 Gary Johnson Johnson Racing '73 Dodge 29 120 engine 0 27 3 02 Chuck Bown Bown Racing '73 Plymouth 2 115 head gasket 0 28 11 3 John Soares, Jr. Soares Racing '74 Dodge 2 110 valve 0 29 6 37 Chuck Wahl Excel Trailer (Joe Marsik) '73 Chevrolet 2 105 engine 0

Lap leader breakdown: Leader From Lap To Lap # Of Laps Harry Jefferson 1 200 200

Ghost Track expedition to Ontario Motor Speedway site: