NASCAR Came to Pocono 40 years Ago Monday; Petty Won on Tricky Triangle Before NASCAR

A retired columnist for the Allentown Morning Call authored the article below:

Pocono Raceway to mark its NASCAR anniversary
Monday will be the 40th anniversary of the deal that helped take the Long Pond track from the red to the black.

July 30, 2014

By Paul Reinhard, Special to The Morning Call

The closest thing to a North-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line event on NASCAR's Grand National Series in 1973 was a 500-miler at the Michigan International Speedway, which began staging races for stock car racing's Daytona, Fla., based series in 1969.

Bill France Sr. was eager to expand his borders to include the lucrative New York City market.

He also noticed that the United States Auto Club stock car guys were not working out well as a complement to the successful Schaefer 500 Indy car race at Pocono International Raceway, Dr. Joe Mattioli's 2.5-mile super speedway in the heart of Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

Mattioli had creditors nipping at his heels at almost every turn. He learned quickly that making a profit at a facility as large as Pocono with only one marquee event was virtually impossible.

Despite the fact that NASCAR was pretty much an unknown quantity in the Northeast, Mattioli agreed to hear NASCAR's Bill France Sr.'s pitch to bring his good ol' boys to Pocono for a 1974 500-mile race.

Mattioli finished off a prior agreement with USAC by running a USAC stock car race in April 1974. Ron Keselowski, who started his career in NASCAR but was transitioning to USAC, won the race and NASCAR veteran Buddy Baker set a track record in qualifying to win the pole.

A little more than three months later, Pocono, which had as its goal the title of Indy of the East, not Daytona of the North, introduced the Northeast to the slow-talking, but fast-driving NASCAR series that would take the Long Pond track from red to black in a big way.

Monday will mark the anniversary of the first NASCAR race at Pocono's sometimes-baffling tri-oval, but the 40-year association between the Mattioli and France families will be celebrated when the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' GoBowling.com 400 takes the green flag about 1 p.m. Sunday.

That first Purolator 500 on Aug. 4, 1974, drew a modest crowd estimated at 40,000 a far cry from the 100,000-plus who attended the Schaefer 500 , which was won by Johnny Rutherford.

Rutherford collected a winner's check for $92,700 from a total purse of $412,030, while Richard Petty took home $17,000 from an $83,900 prize fund for the NASCAR race.

At the time, NASCAR was clearly the minor league in the Northeast.

Stock car racing, based primarily in the Southeast and investing its hopes of expanding popularity around the Daytona 500, was not having an easy time of escaping its regional reputation.

Oh, France's series had made some inroads into the Northeast market in the 1950s and 1960s.

Langhorne Speedway had events on the dirt from 1949-57; the Trenton Speedway hosted NASCAR eight times from 1958 to 1972.

The good ol' boys even came to the Reading Fairgrounds, where the legendary Junior Johnson won 100-milers in 1958 and 1959.

But trips to Pennsylvania called for a time investment on the part of the teams that just didn't make financial sense, so NASCAR stayed closer to home most of the time.

But some drivers, like Petty and Baker and Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough won often enough that race fans outside the Southeast began to take notice.

So, when Pocono's Mattioli wanted to spice up the lackluster USAC stock car fields, he decided to bring in some of those Southern gentlemen of NASCAR to take on the gang of mostly Midwestern racers.

Petty came to Long Pond for the first time in 1972, along with a handful of lesser-known racers.

Petty led 13 laps in the USAC Pennsylvania 500, but a blown engine sidelined his Plymouth after 102 laps and he finished 22nd.

The following year, Petty returned again, and this time "The King" was ready for the challenge. He led 124 laps and easily won the Acme 500.

Bobby Allison, one of Petty's chief competitors on the NASCAR circuit who earlier in 1973 had crossed over from NASCAR to race in the Indy 500 for Penske, also ran Pocono that year, but wound up 25th.

The experience Petty gained during his USAC races in 1972 and 1973 was invaluable in the first official NASCAR event. Petty's Dodge led 152 laps in the race after starting third behind Baker and Allison.

Allison, driving the Penske Matador, very nearly stole the race, however, when he elected to stay out on the track while Petty and three other front-runners pitted under yellow when it began to rain.

"We could see the rain was coming and we didn't want to pit too soon," Allison said after the race. "It looked like a pretty good move, too, for a while."

But after a rain delay of 82 minutes, the race resumed. Petty easily overtook Allison seven laps later to regain the lead; Allison eventually left the race with an engine problem, and rain later stopped the race for good.

So, the first Purolator 500 was actually the Purolator 480 because it was red-flagged after 192 laps. Petty led Baker by almost 19 seconds when the final rain came.

"Bobby probably would have stopped too, if he hadn't been having trouble," Petty said after the race. "He took a gamble on the rain and we took a chance on racing."

Baker was followed by Cale Yarborough, who came to Pocono with eight wins under his belt, David Pearson and Benny Parsons.

It was not a spectacular debut for the NASCAR guys, and in 1975, Doc Mattioli was dangerously close to giving up. He would have had no problem selling Pocono.

But a meeting with Big Bill France in New York City changed the entire course of events.

During their meeting, France scrawled a message on the back of a business card. Actually, it was a quote from a preacher named George W. Cecil.

It read, "On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who, at the dawn of victory, sat down to wait, and waiting, died."

Mattioli framed that card. He had it enlarged, and an image of it is in Pocono's media lounge today.

Mattioli did not sell. And when things went totally sour with the Indy car fraternity, France stepped in again, gave Pocono a second NASCAR date in 1982 and those two summer races turned out to be a gold mine for the Mattiolis. Not long before his death, Doc admitted to be being worth $600 million.

"I started out with $48 in my account how successful do I have to be?" he told Frank Fitzpatrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

An indication of how things have turned around is shown by the fact that, in June of this year, Dale Earnhardt Jr. got $198,965 from a total purse of $4,563,471 for the NASCAR 500-miler while Juan Pablo Montoya got $88,889 from a purse of $991,669 for his win in the Verizon IndyCar Series 500-mile event July 6. And now the NASCAR race has the six-figure attendance while the Indy cars struggle to get 25,000.

Doc is gone now. The one-time 500-mile races are now 400-milers. Speculation about how long Pocono can hold on to two events on the NASCAR schedule resurface almost every year.

The grandchildren of Doc Mattioli and Big Bill France are now running the shows. But so far, nothing has changed.

Retired sports columnist Paul Reinhard is a freelance writer.

Richard Petty's first Pocono win came one year before the first Pocono NASCAR race when he got to the checkers first in the July 29, 1973 Acme 500 USAC stock car race. Here's UPI coverage from the Pittsburgh Press :

Acme 500

USACStock Carrace
Pocono International Raceway ,Long Pond,PA
July 29, 1973
200laps on 2.5 mile paved oval;500 miles

Time of race: 03:45:56
Average Speed: 132.781 MPH
Pole Speed: 60.41 seconds
Race Purse: $ 64,550

Ultimate Racing History

A year ago, I blogged about Petty's win in the 1973 Acme Super Saver 500.

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2013/07/july-29-1973-petty-poaches-pocono.html

After breaking early in the 1972 USAC 500 stock car event, he returned in 1973 to claim the win. His experience likely set him up for success with wins in two of the first three Cup events there.

Here is my blog post for his win in the inaugural Cup event there in 1974...

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/08/august-4-this-day-in-petty-history.html

...and the winner's trophy as was displayed at the Petty Museum.

And here is my blog post about RP's win at Pocono in 1976 when he was greeted in victory lane by his future daughter-in-law.

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/08/august-1-this-day-in-petty-history-part_01.html

Associated Press coverage of Richard Petty's July 29, 1973 USAC Acme 500 win at Pocono from the St. Petersburg Evening Independent:

I realize this is STOCK CAR RacersReunion site, but Dave mentioned the SCHAEFER 500 Indy car races at Pocono. A few years ago, I blogged about each of them that ran from Mark Donohue's 1971 win in the first one through Al Unser Sr's win in the final one in 1978.

Recently, I updated each of my blog posts with more articles, photos and decals. If you care to read about any of them, you can find links to the posts for the individual races by clicking here.

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2014/07/schaefer-500s-revisited.html

Dave,

A couple of Grand American cars made the trip to Pocono in 1971 for the USAC Pennsylvania 500 won by Butch Hartman in a '69 Dodge Daytona. Jim Paschal drove a '70 Javelin and Wayne Andrews drove Reid Shaw's '71 Mustang. Paschal lost oil pressure after 97 laps and Wayne dropped a valve two laps later.

The reason this race sticks out in my mind is that there was a Nascar race rained out while they were at Pocono and when dad tried to enter the race on the rain date Nascar would not let him run because he went to Pocono.

Thanks, Chase.

Times changed a few years later didn't they, Dennis. I suspect Big Bill secretly grinned at Richard beating the USAC contingent in 1973.

The Petty win in the 1973 USAC event made headlines around the country.

The Argus Press of Michigan highlighted the USAC boys getting whipped:

The Reading Eagle and Gettsburg Times and The day of New London, CT credited the Petty Enterprises pit crew:

The Lewiston, Maine paper ran a preview of the Pocono USAC race:

I think the most interesting comments I've read about Richard Petty racing at Pocono in the various pre-NASCAR stock car events came in a very candid interview in 1977 with the Milwaukee Journal when Petty revealed his shock at seeing all the scars on the Indy car drivers from their various accidents:

I should have found your blog from last year. I especially enjoyed this particular excerpt referring to how USAC officials treated Richard and how Doc Mattioli stood up for him just as he had previously for sponsor Schaefer at an Indy car event:

Mattioli, who also once faced down an ABC Sports official by telling him there would be no Schaefer 500 on Wide World of Sports if the Schaefer name couldn't be used. The ABC guys, while trying to avoid giving sponsors free advertising, buckled then too.

Bump