Ha! The legend of the Petty door. Like a bad virus, that erronous story won't fully go away & keeps coming back.
http://racersreunion.com/community/forum/stock-car-racing-history/27283/september-18-1965-capital-city-300-at-richmond
Paddlefoot! For several races, Wales drove Roy Counce's #10 Benward Chevelle at Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway. Counce was our neighbor for a couple of years when my folks rented their first house in Nashville. He and my dad worked together back then. Counce had drivers such as Paddlefoot, James Ham, James Climer, Steve Spencer and Alton Jones behind the wheel of his cars.
Learned from Russ this article is from the May 1968 issue of Stock Car Racing mag. I saw "Milwaukee 250" on the cover of the earlier one and that was it. Apparently the November 1967 issue included an article about an earlier 250 mile race at Milwaukee.
As is so often the case, Russ Thompson has come through again. He shared this article about the race from the November 1967 issue of Stock Car Racing magazine.
As the southern NASCAR crowd raced in Hillsboro, NC on September 17, 1967, the midwestern USAC stock car bunch raced at Wisconsin State Fair Park near Milwaukee, WI in the Governor's Cup 250. - Motor Racing Programme Covers
While many of the names that race were familiar to the fans - and still are to this day, the CARS some of them were to race that day were confusing.
Lowe was allowed to race only he got a waiver from NASCAR and USAC for him to do so - and pay a $6 waiver fee, penalty, tax, or whatever you want to call it. I realize the intense rivalry between the leadership of USAC and NASCAR was real, but it really seems so petty (not Petty). I'm curious whether fans of that day also agreed and would have preferred drivers to simply suit up and drive whenever and wherever they wanted.
Bowsher won the pole but didn't get much of a chance to leverage it to his advantage. Third place starter Parnelli loosened him on lap 1, and Jones then set sail to lead almost the first quarter of the race's 200 laps.
Bowsher finally got back under Jones to take the lead on the 45th lap. He stayed in front several laps until he needed to make a routine pit stop. In doing so, he turned the lead over to Foyt. But as Kevin Harvick has experienced in 2014, issues on pit road cost Bowsher valuable time and ultimately the race. He ran over an air hose, and it wrapped around the flywheel. Within 2 laps, he was done for the day.
Yet with about 70 laps to go, he had his crew flag Bosco Lowe to the pits. Lowe had been running solidly in the top 10. Yet Bowsher had Lowe get out of his Ford so he could jump in his 2nd team car. In fairness to Bowsher, he hustled the car not only back to where Boscoe had it - but all the way up to a third place finish.
Foyt started 2nd in the #11 Holman Moody Ford. He took advantage of Bowsher's pit woes and DNF and his crew sent him back to the track quicker than Parnelli's crew. With those 2 chips in his stack, Super Tex was able to build a comfortable lead for almost the entirety of the second half of the race.
As the checkers fell, Foyt finished well ahead of Parnelli. Bowsher's third place finish was 4 laps down to the first two. Even after reading newspaper accounts, I'm still unsure how USAC scored the finish. Lowe started the race, and I would presume he would be credited with the finish. Yet Bowsher's name shows up in most accounts and results I've found leading me to wonder if they each were credited with the P3.
| Fin | Driver | Car |
| 1 | A.J. Foyt | 1967 Ford |
| 2 | Parnelli Jones | 1967 Ford |
| 3 | Bosco Lowe/J. Bowsher | 1967 Ford |
| 4 | Whitey Gerken | 1967 Ford |
| 5 | Norm Nelson | 1967 Plymouth |
| 6 | Al Unser | 1967 Dodge |
| 7 | Roger Regeth | 1966 Ford |
| 8 | Butch Hartman | 1965 Dodge |
| 9 | Rick Kleich | 1965 Chevrolet Chevelle |
| 10 | Dave Whitcomb | 1965 Plymouth |
| 11 | Bill Cheesbourg | 1967 Ford |
| 12 | Bill Behling | 1967 Ford |
| 13 | Dave Dayton | 1967 Mercury |
| 14 | Sal Tovella | 1967 Dodge |
| 15 | Bay Darnell | 1965 Plymouth |
| 16 | Paul Feldner | 1967 Pontiac |
| 17 | Tom Klippel | 1965 Chevrolet |
| 18 | Terry Parker | 1965 Chevrolet Chevelle |
| 19 | Glen Bradley | 1965 Dodge |
| 20 | Frank Freda | 1966 Plymouth |
| 21 | Dale Koehler | 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle |
| 22 | Dave Hirschfield | 1966 Plymouth |
| 23 | George Rondelli | 1965 Chevrolet |
| 24 | Dale Jett | 1965 Plymouth |
| 25 | Don White | 1967 Dodge |
| 26 | Dwight Knupp | 1965 Plymouth |
| 27 | Jack Bowsher | 1967 Ford |
| 28 | Red Owen | 1965 Ford |
| 29 | Wayne Brockman | 1966 Ford |
| 30 | Tom Jones | 1966 Ford |
| 31 | Eddie Meyer | 1965 Dodge |
| 32 | Gene Marmor | 1965 Plymouth |
| 33 | Jerry Smith | 1965 Plymouth |
| 34 | Bob Phernetton | 1967 Mercury |
| 35 | Dick Beinlich | 1967 Ford |
| 36 | Rabon Hinkle | 1966 Ford |
| 37 | Jim Mitchell | 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle |
| 38 | Jim Voyles | 1965 Chevrolet Chevelle |
| 39 | Harold Regh Jr. | 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle |
| 40 | Troy Miller | 1965 Plymouth |
Back in 2011, I blogged about Richard Petty's win at Orange Speedway in Hillsborough on September 17, 1967. I didn't have much content in my post back then. From what I can tell, I'm not sure I even posted the link on RR. But today, I stumbled across several Southern MotoRacing images scanned and shared here by Harvey Tollison. So I updated my post & thought I'd include it here:
https://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-17-this-day-in-petty-history.html
Richard wins his 73rd career race, his 25th of the season and his eighth race in a row in 1967 by winning the Hillsboro 150 at Orange Speedway from the pole - all while suffering from the flu.
Dick Hutcherson led the first 68 laps of the race before Tiny Lund got by him to lead the next 11. The King then took over to lead the final 88 laps of the 167-lap race.
Though two drivers dominated the pace, it doesn't mean the race was void of excitement. Just 12 laps into the race, Jack Harden lost control of his Ford down the frontstretch, leaped the turn 1 wall, tumbled and came to rest about 100 feet from the track. He was carefully removed from his car and transported to the hospital, but fortunately he wasn't seriously injured. (Photos from SouthernMotorRacing and courtesy of Harvey Tollison at RacersReunion.com)
Racing resumed for another 20 laps or so when another spectacular accident occurred between three drivers - Paul Dean Holt, Earl Brooks and Bill Ervin. Holt's car came to rest on its side.
While it's unknown what Brooks was saying to NASCAR official Dick Beaty, it's probable the conversation was heated considering Brooks' day ended following the 3-car pile-up.
Mike Hembree wrote a great article on Sterling Marlin's on-going racing and challenges with Parkinsonism disease.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2014/09/16/sterling-marlin-has-parkinsonism-still-driving-nashville/15652705/
The story doesn't visit much of the past but instead focuses on Sterling's current racing endeavors and health situation. Included in the article are a handful of really funny quips.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. Among former NASCAR driver Sterling Marlin's many friends in auto racing circles is a man whose nickname is Shaky. Shaky has Parkinson's disease.
"I was in my motorhome at the track one time, and Shaky came in," Marlin told USA TODAY Sports. "I was eating a bologna sandwich, and I asked him if he wanted one. I fixed it and handed it to him. He sat there holding it with his hands shaking and moving back and forth, and he was trying to grab the bologna with his mouth. I said, 'Shaky, it looks like you're having some trouble.' "
Years later, Marlin has a much clearer understanding of Shaky's dilemma. Two years ago, Marlin was diagnosed with Parkinsonism, a degenerative nerve disorder similar to Parkinson's. His right hand shakes involuntarily, and he has a slight limp in his right leg.
Yet Marlin, 57, hasn't put down the tools of his trade a race-car steering wheel and the associated wrenches, torches and hammers that accompany the ride.
On a hot summer Saturday night at Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville, the track where Marlin got his start under the guidance of his father, the late Clifton "Coo Coo" Marlin, he's back burning laps on the .596-mile surface. Five years removed from his final race in Sprint Cup, a series that made him a rich man, Marlin is a hobby racer again, banging fenders just for the fun of it.
He races regularly at the Fairgrounds, a classic Southern short track that, like Marlin, is a survivor. Sitting in the shadows of the tall buildings of Nashville's modern cityscape, the speedway is a stubborn anachronism. Some city leaders want the track, which formerly hosted the Sprint Cup Series, demolished to allow for expanded development of urban Nashville, but, like Marlin, it races on.
Marlin won the Fairgrounds track championship in 1980, '81 and '82 as part of resume building that eventually put him at the top level of Sprint Cup racing. He won 10 times, including back-to-back Daytona 500s in 1994 and '95, and became a championship challenger. When injuries and sub-par rides brought on the decline of his Cup career, Marlin surprised almost no one by returning to Nashville, an hour north of his sprawling farmstead in Columbia, Tenn., to race once more.
Marlin: 'I can do what I need to do'
Son of a racer and father of one (and, not incidentally, father-in-law of one), Marlin carries the vigorous gene that seems to make turning fast laps in competition almost a necessity. Even with a debilitating health condition.
Parkinsonism causes a combination of the movement abnormalities that are typical in Parkinson's disease, such as tremors and impaired movement, and often ushers in Parkinson's. Although Marlin said it has not diminished his ability to work on race cars and drive them at high speeds, the impact is obvious to anyone who follows him around the Nashville pit area. His right hand often shakes, and he works on his race car primarily with his left hand. A natural right-hander, he writes slowly.
"When it first started, I couldn't fasten my helmet or button a shirt with my right hand," Marlin said, "but now I can do what I need to do. I take the medication, and that pretty much controls it. It doesn't have any impact on driving. My hand doesn't get tired. I drive mostly with my left hand, anyway. My right hand kind of floats along with the steering wheel."
People noticed the change, though. Retired three-time Cup champion and current TV analyst Darrell Waltrip, who also won Nashville track championships, said Marlin's problem became evident as they communicated via phone.
"It got to where he couldn't text back and forth with me," Waltrip told USA TODAY Sports. "That was the way that we would communicate, but, over a period of time, I couldn't tell what the text messages were. He finally told me to call him, that if I wanted to talk that's what we had to do. That kind of worried me."
But Waltrip raced through a laundry list of injuries in his Hall of Fame career and understands the urge to keep racing.
"You can have some physical problems, but if it's in your genes and you have the talent like Sterling has, those things don't seem to affect you like maybe they would other athletes," Waltrip said. "I had broken ribs or a broken collarbone, but when I got in my race car I put all of that out of my mind and focused on the driving and still did pretty darn good.
"I think it's probably great therapy for him to go out there and compete. The other things kind of go on the back burner."
Marlin led about half the 100-lap race on this Saturday night, finishing second after his Chevrolet developed minor handling problems in the closing laps. He runs in every race at Nashville, where the schedule is limited to one event per month, and also occasionally competes in Late Model races at other big regional tracks outside the Southeast. He remains a box-office attraction.
Building a life around racing
Marlin is on a far shore from Cup now, but that hardly seems to matter. It's about the racing. Always has been.
"We had to get married around racing, and we still plan everything around racing," said Paula Marlin, Sterling's wife of 36 years. "It's just always going to be that way. It never changes. He still drives crazy, and he still drives everybody else crazy."
Paula is in the infield on this night. Steadman, Sterling's son, works on the team's pit crew. Sutherlin, Marlin's daughter, has brought her one-year-old son, Colter. Sutherlin's husband, Michael House, also races at the track.
Steadman's 10-year-old son, Stirlin, already is involved in the family's racing, his duties primarily involving cleaning the inside of the race car and eating potato chips from the stash in the team truck. His grandfather figures he'll soon buy Stirlin what is defined in the Marlin vernacular as a "yard car," a beat-up $100 junkyard refugee that the boy can spin in the dirt on the farm. This is the first step toward racing, if Stirlin wants that.
The cycle goes on.
"I'll be doing this until I can't any more or until I don't want to or can't compete," Marlin said. "We still lead laps and can win races, so I'm still enjoying it."
The Marlin compound, as the family calls it, stretches for 850 acres south of Nashville, and he raises beef cattle. Marlin claims to be half-racer, half-farmer.
Sutherlin, however, disagrees. "He's seven-eighths racer, one-eighth farmer, maybe," she said.
Although Marlin's sweeping farm acreage is impressive and the house he and Paula built 18 years ago dominates the landscape, the race shop along the roadside clearly is Marlin headquarters. He owns five Late Model cars. He, Steadman and House would choose tinkering on the cars over riding tractors across the hay fields (although Marlin admits that, after a wet summer, "It's time to cut hay.").
Marlin always has been a combination of farm boy and racer. He knows the surrounding woodlands well and can take you to the old oak tree where he and his teen-age pals hid their copies of Playboy . His father grew tobacco, and Sterling worked those fields as a teen-ager, providing significant incentive for a racing career.
"I don't miss that a bit," he said. "Tobacco is a 13-month-a-year job. It's a lot of hands-on labor. Hot. Nasty. Sticky. A mess. I don't know how my dad did that and raced, too."
Success in racing turned Marlin into a gentleman farmer of sorts, although he still likes to climb on a tractor now and then. The money that flowed from Cup victory lanes allowed him to buy and develop property in and around Nashville, and he and Paula own a condominium in St. Thomas. They visit there several times a year, but, as Paula points out, "The visits keep being cut shorter and shorter because we have to get back to work on a race car."
This, despite the nagging realities of Parkinsonism.
'It was scary'
Marlin said he first noticed something unusual about his health three years ago.
"I'd be walking and kind of trip like my right leg wouldn't pick up the foot enough," he said. "And I would have trouble starting to thread a nut with my fingers. Then I cut a knuckle on my right hand bad cutting some exhaust pipes. Opened it up pretty good. But I closed it with some Super Glue. Didn't have time to go to the doctor. Had a race the next day."
This clinical approach is not unusual in the Marlin family, Paula confirms. "Super Glue and duct tape," she said. "He couldn't live without duct tape."
Marlin eventually did visit a doctor, however, and the Parkinsonism was confirmed. He's on three-times-a-day medication to help control the tremors.
"The doctor said it could get worse or it could stay like it is for 15 or 20 years," Marlin said. "I went this week to see him again, and he said everything looks fine, that I can stay on the lowest dosage medicine."
As he has for most of his life, Marlin accepted his health issue as just another bump in the road and drove on. The word "Parkinson's" brought the extended Marlin family to attention, though, said Jon Hood, Paula's younger brother and a member of the Marlin racing crew.
"It was scary," Hood said. "You hear Parkinson's, and naturally you think, 'That's it.' My grandfather had the full-on Parkinson's, so I know what it will do to you. But Sterling is a tough cat. You'd never know from him that it bothers him. What you see is what you get. At times it gets frustrating, but he's not going to use it as an excuse or a crutch or anything.
"I told my family last year that they better come to all the races they can because this could be it, but then he won three of the first four races last year, and it lit a fire under him. He keeps buying more cars. I think he'll race until he can't get in the car any more."
Tony Formosa, the Nashville track operator, a former driver and a long-time friend of Marlin's, understands. Formosa, now 60, lost his left eye in a track accident at 17 and decided to give up his dream of racing.
"Then one of the champion drivers here at the track, George Bennett, came out to my house," Formosa said. "We sat on the patio, and he asked me, 'When are you getting your car and coming back to the track?' I said, 'Well, I won't be back. I knocked my eye out.'
"He took off his glasses and said, 'Look here. I lost my left eye when I was 3 years old. It was pecked out by a chicken. It didn't stop me from driving.' That inspired me, and I came back to accept the challenge.
"You just keep doing what you love to do. You make the best of what you've got. Even though Sterling has some health issues, it doesn't look like he's ever skipped a beat. He's just as sharp on his setups. He knows where he's going when he starts something, and it takes a lot to throw him off track. He's still a hell of a race car driver."
'The thing about Sterling - he never changes'
Saturday is a long race day at Nashville. Teams check in by 11 a.m. Daylight hours are filled with practice, qualifying and races for undercard divisions before the featured Late Models run about 9 p.m.
Family and crew members are one and the same for most of the teams in the pit area, and there is near-constant traffic in the Marlin hauler from the race car parked outside to the rear of the team hauler, where tools, Gatorade and sandwich bread are stored.
Hanging near the back of the hauler is a baseball bat, which one of the team members describes as an "encourager" if disagreements between teams or drivers erupt. "It wound up here one night after a fight, and we kept it," Marlin said, smiling.
Talk in the hauler includes University of Tennessee football (for it), immigration at the Mexican border (against it) and the track hot dog (for it).
Billy Harrison, friends with Marlin since the second grade, works on the pit crew, along with his sons, Zach and Luke. Another son, Nick, also has a background at the Nashville track but now is a crew chief for Richard Childress Racing.
Billy Harrison, who played football with Marlin at Spring Hill High School in Columbia, has watched every step of Marlin's career.
"The thing about Sterling he never changes," Harrison said. "He's been the same down-to-earth country boy. Once he retired from NASCAR, this racing here is all about fun. This was the track he grew up on, and he loves to race here. That's what it's all about to him."
Marlin qualifies fourth fastest in a field of 28, takes the lead on the third lap and stays in front until lap 50, when eventual winner Josh Weston moves in front. "Car just got loose," Marlin says after the race.
Marlin signs autographs for fans, his right hand shaking. Still "country as cornbread," as one of his friends says, he will ride off into the Nashville night to race another day.
"No one cuts him any slack on the race track," said Nashville driver Tyler Miles, 22 and a Marlin fan since childhood. "He's still a racer. He's one of the ones to beat. He's one of us."
Excerpted from my 2011 blog post here:
https://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-15-this-day-in-petty-history.html
Richard Petty wins from the pole in the Maryland 300 at Beltsville Speedway for his seventh win in a row in 1967.
Petty and third-place starter Bobby Allison swapped the lead frequently for much of the the first two-thirds of the race. With 135 laps to go, however, the 43 Plymouth took the lead again and sailed the rest of the way to the win. - Chris Hussey photo
Article from Jerry Bushmire
Excerpted from my 2011 blog post here:
https://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-15-this-day-in-petty-history_15.html
1968 - Richard scores his 88th career victory by winning from the pole in the Hillsboro 150 at Orange Speedway in Hillsboro NC as the legendary Curtis Turner makes his final Grand National start. - photo from Chris Hussey
In his book, Silent Speedways of the Carolinas , author and fellow RR member Perry Allen Wood writes:
When the green sent the boys on that last journey, Petty led (David)Pearson and the others for 74 laps. With some spine-tingling, door-to-door banging, Pearson led for 11 laps before they swapped it a couple of more times. In the meantime,(Buddy)Baker made only five laps before losing the drive shaft and on lap 116, Curtis Turner rolled into the dusty pits with a blown engine. Four laps later, Pearson parked it, and after 11 more(Bobby)Isaac hung it up. Even(G.C.)Spencer conked out. and Petty coasted to a yawner of a seven-lap victory... ~ p. 122
From Ray Lamm
Pic and article from RR Jerry Bushmire
Many took the opportunity to meet Fast Freddy at Chicago ... including fellow NASCAR HOFer Dale Inman
