buddy bakers first-- racing -- lap over 200 mph. not in a practice
Stock Car Racing History
You won't find any documentation on an event that never happened.
They ran without side glass in the cars for that race. They were allowed to qualify WITH side glass.
Any of the cars would have needed 650 horsepower to get near 200 mph with no side glass.
ABC Wide World of Sports covered that event. They would have mentioned anyone doing laps over 200. That would have been a HUGE deal for Nascar!! There are no vintage magazine coverage mentioning any laps near 200, much less over that number. Check Stock Car Racing, Southern MotorSports, National Speed Sport News, etc. NOTHING - 200 never happened during that race.
I agree with the posters on dodgecharger.com that entire story was fabricated to inflate the selling price of the #6 Daytona. There is also proof posted on that same site the car was a show car only and never even seen a racetrack with Baker in it. There are photos of the REAL car Buddy drove at Daytona and Talladega showing photos of the dash and interior. TOTALLY different than the current show car Daytona #6.
It's amazing what people will do for money.
Bobby Allison ran 197. in the August, 1969 test at Talladega driving the #88 Daytona. He never got to 200 at that time. Nobody did during that test. That includes Baker, Glotzbach, Isaac and Hylton, who all drove the Chrysler Engineering test car.
Lastly, the ONLY reason they ran for 200 in March 1970 was because Bill France asked them to come down and do it. He wanted positive publicity for the April race to sell more tickets. (there we go about the $$$!)
Have you seen the record run on Youtube? Search: "Baker 200 Talladega"
Wide World of Sports was there, filming it!! Bill France was there, watching it.
Would those guys have been there for a "transmission test"? lol.....