Forum Activity for @tmc-chase

September 13, 1969 - Big Bill and The PDA square off

Stock Car Racing History

Very interesting Dave. In recent years as I've blogged about Petty wins or searched for supplemental articles for posts by folks such as yourself and Tim Leeming, I've often been intrigued by the minimal NASCAR coverage by the Daytona paper over the decades.

The DBMJ generally covered Speedweeks pretty well, but the rest of the year rarely had much in-depth coverage. I thought that to be odd with NASCAR being HQ'd in Daytona Beach.

Yet, here is an article detailing name for name of those who chose not to the run the 1969 Talladega race. My hunch is someone pretty high up in the beach suite made a personal call to the sports editor to ensure his point of view was conveyed in the local paper.

September 13, 1969 - Big Bill and The PDA square off

Stock Car Racing History

After a series of driver deaths and injuries through much of the 1960s - in NASCAR, USAC and F1 - NASCAR's top drivers met in a secret location in Ann Arbor, Michigan on August 14, 1969. The result of that meeting was the formation of the Professional Drivers Association - the PDA.

http://racersreunion.com/community/forum/stock-car-racing-history/33705/august-14-1969-a-secret-meeting-results-in-a-public-decision

Big Bill France thought little of the PDA, and he didn't give it much more thought - at least publicly. The elephant in the room that loomed was the upcoming inaugural GN race at France's new Alabama International Motor Speedway - Talladega.

The combination of the new pavement, high speeds, questionable tires, and an obstinate attitude by France led to a fairly well known stand-off between France, NASCAR officials, and the members of the PDA led by its president, King Richard. - Ray Lamm

On September 13, 1969, the day before the Talladega 500, the stand-off resulted in a drive-off. The teams loaded their cars, and the transporters left the track - led by the 43 Ford team from Level Cross.

From Gadsden Times

From Gadsden Times

From there, most are familiar with Bill France's next two actions:

• Suiting up himself in a #53 Ford to prove how safe his new track was, and
• Running the 500 anyway - filled with a few GN regulars and a bunch of GT cars that had raced the day before in the Bama 400.

Photos from  Talladega Spoiler Registry

In the end, France got his way as usual. His mantra of the show must go on prevailed. The PDA's leverage disappeared really before it had a chance to develop. Yet, Petty, Lee Roy, Bobby Allison, and the other PDA members made a point as well by leaving.

updated by @tmc-chase: 10/15/17 03:00:26PM

September 12, 1976 - Cale Conquers Richmond

Stock Car Racing History

And six years before Junior's win, Cotton Owens won at Richmond on September 13, 1959 in his Thunder Chicken. Tim Leeming's post:

http://racersreunion.com/community/forum/stock-car-racing-history/27123/racing-history-minute-september-13-1959

updated by @tmc-chase: 09/12/17 11:12:03AM

September 12, 1976 - Cale Conquers Richmond

Stock Car Racing History

Yesterday, our nation celebrated the somber day of 9/11. It's kind of hard to remember when September 11th was just another day. In 1976, September 12th simply followed the 11th. Instead, the US was still basking in the glory of the nation's bicentennial.

On September 12, 1976, the NASCAR Winston Cup Grand National Series rolled into the half-mile track at the Richmond Fairgrounds. The teams prepared to run the Capital City 400 - only the 2nd 400 lapper after 7 seasons of running 500 lap races at the track.

Benny Parsons won the pole on Friday, September 10th. Darrell Waltrip plunked his Gatorade Chevy on the front row with DW. Dave Marcis - winner of the 'spring' Richmond race - timed 3rd. Buddy Baker and Childress were mild surprises with their 4th and 5th fastest times, respectively.

Three future NASCAR HOFers started 6th, 7th and 8th - Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty and Bobby Allison. RR member Brian Yezierski nabbed several good pre-race photos.

[ Petty and Allison ] on the starting grid.

[ Allison's CAM2 Penske Mercury ]

10th place starter [ Lennie Pond ]

Cale and car owner Junior Johnson enjoyed a pre-race meal of their sponsor's product - [ Ray Lamm ]

Looking back, it's hard to believe Cale hadn't won at Richmond coming into the 1976 season. As prolific as he was throughout his career at places like Nashville, Bristol, Martinsville, and North Wilkesboro, he had not won at Richmond through the series' first trip there in March of 76. - Times Daily

At the drop of the green, Waltrip - the defending race winner - put folks on notice that he planned to repeat. He led the 1st 92 laps; however, he eventually faded and ended up finishing 4th - one lap down to the winner.

The track ended up being a tough one to negotiate. In today's racing, NASCAR will throw a phantom caution for mystery debris - generally in turn 3 where tracks often have no grandstands. In the 76 Richmond race, drivers complained afterwards about the volume of debris they had to dodge throughout the day. One Dodge that didn't dodge well enough was the 43 of Petty. He cut multiple tires during the day which resulting in his inability to challenge for the win as he'd grown accustomed to doing at Richmond over the years.

Once Waltrip was done with his time up front, the day pretty well belonged to Yarborough. Allison had his opportunity to lead a couple of sizable segments. But Cale put his butterscotch colored Monte Carlo in the wind for 109 laps during the mid-stages of the race, and he led the final 89 laps en route to his first win. He backed up the win with a follow-up victory the following season and notched a 3rd and final Richmond win in March 1979 - two races after his legendary last lap crash on the last lap of the Daytona 500. - Getty Images

A bit more than halfway through the race, overheated brakes in Ed Negre's Dodge led to it catching fire. The incident led to the first of only two caution flags during the day.

Car owner Don Robertson fielded two cars in the race. Dick May drove car #25 - most notably driven over the years by Jabe Thomas. And Larry LaMay started car #23 - the Schlitz Beer Chevrolet. LaMay's start was the 1st of a 4-race Cup career.

LaMay completed only 87 laps before exiting because of driver fatigue/illness. As a result, he finished dead last in the 30-car field. He returned 3 races later at Wilkesboro and finished a respectable 16th. A couple of weeks later, he won an ARCA race at Toledo Speedway - presumably in the same Robertson-owned Schlitz Chevy.

Today, LaMay is still involved with racing as a rep for a transmission company called G-Force South .

http://www.dailytribune.com/sports/20140613/more-mis-speed-means-more-stress-on-nascar-car-parts

Though Cale led almost the final quarter of the race, Allison kept him honest. At the checkers, Allison's #2 Mercury was only about a half car-length behind Yarborough. King Richard finished 3rd, one lap down - followed by Waltrip. - Schenectady Gazette

from Free Lance Star

Fin	Driver	Sponsor / Owner	Car
1	Cale Yarborough	Holly Farms (Junior Johnson)	Chevrolet
2	Bobby Allison	CAM 2 (Roger Penske)	Mercury
3	Richard Petty	STP (Petty Enterprises)	Dodge
4	Darrell Waltrip	Gatorade (DiGard)	Chevrolet
5	Buddy Baker	Norris Industries (Bud Moore)	Ford
6	Lennie Pond	Pepsi-Cola (Ronnie Elder)	Chevrolet
7	Dave Marcis	K & K Insurance (Nord Krauskopf)	Dodge
8	Dick Brooks	Truxmore (Junie Donlavey)	Ford
9	Terry Bivins	Ballard Racing (Walter Ballard)	Chevrolet
10	Bobby Wawak	John Gwinn	Chevrolet
11	J.D. McDuffie	J.D. McDuffie	Chevrolet
12	Henley Gray	Belden Asphalt (Henley Gray)	Chevrolet
13	Cecil Gordon	Cecil Gordon	Chevrolet
14	Dean Dalton	Dean Dalton	Chevrolet
15	Elmo Langley	Elmo Langley	Ford
16	James Hylton	Hylton Engineering (James Hylton)	Chevrolet
17	D.K. Ulrich	Garden State Auto (J.R. DeLotto)	Chevrolet
18	Buddy Arrington	Buddy Arrington	Dodge
19	Dick May	Don Robertson	Chevrolet
20	Earl Brooks	Handy's Transmission (Hiram Handy)	Chevrolet
21	Gary Myers	Miller Roofing (Junior Miller)	Chevrolet
22	Walter Ballard	Baxter Price	Chevrolet
23	David Sisco	David Sisco	Chevrolet
24	Jimmy Means	WIXC (Bill Gray)	Chevrolet
25	Richard Childress	Kansas Jack (Richard Childress)	Chevrolet
26	Frank Warren	Native Tan (Frank Warren)	Dodge
27	Ed Negre	Ed Negre	Dodge
28	Travis Tiller	Little B / C & K Coal (Travis Tiller)	Dodge
29	Benny Parsons	1st National City Travelers Checks	Chevrolet
30	Larry LaMay	Schlitz (Don Robertson)	Chevrolet

updated by @tmc-chase: 09/12/17 11:11:04AM

13 Years Ago Today

General

My commute in 2001 was about 45-60 minutes. Tons of road construction and traffic congestion. On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, the traffic was particularly bad - as was news and sports talk on the radio. Dumb stories, fake laughs, no interesting sports leads, radio hosts talking over one another, etc. So I quickly jumped to CDs in my Jeep Grand Cherokee to listen to music during my painfully slow roll. But at least I was blissfully unaware of anything else going on other what I could see through my windshield and in my mirrors.

When I got to the office, I was simply relieved to get off the road. Never mind I was again going to sit - this time in a chair vs. behind the wheel. Nonetheless, the worst of the day was over I figured in terms of frustration.

I put down my keys, started my laptop and headed for my first cup of coffee. On the way back to my desk, I stopped by our centralized mail files to see what junk awaited me. Before I could get there, a co-worker met me along the way and was kind of wide-eyed.

I remember him saying something along the lines of "Man, that is crazy. Did you see that plane hit the Trade Center?" I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. He paraphrased his own question into a statement "Yeah, some sort of plane hit one of the towers in New York." No sooner had he said that did we hear another co-worker from their nearby office audibly say "Oh sh*t, another one."

We then parted ways, and I returned to my desk to fire up my web browser as soon as possible. I remember getting FOXNews.com to load - though all pictures and video would not. That is still one part of 9/11 I truly recall - everyone in our company was web bound, constantly trying to re-load pages for updates. Our web traffic had to have peaked that day. Page loads timed out. Many would only half-render.

I tried going back to one of our local news talk radio stations - the one I'd abandoned during my commute. We've never been able to get great radio reception on the floor of our building. But I could hear things well enough to understand the chaos that was unfolding.

Several folks packed up their gear and went home for the rest of the day. I chose to stay at work - but obviously not nothing done. I'd already scheduled Wed-Fri as 'vacation' days to pressure wash and steal our cedar fence at home. I'm really glad I did and followed through with it. It gave me 3 days to be alone and process a wide range of emotions that cycled many times in the days that followed.

I visited the Ground Zero site in NYC in November 2002 - about 15 months after the tragedy. Emotions were still raw as I stood there at night in a light mist. And I still reflect about what was & what has become each time I fly to Newark NJ and glance towards the City.

On the Fence

Current NASCAR

Wonder if that moron's dad ever served time in an Eastaboga jail for stealing a pace car.

Matchbox & Hot Wheels: Childhood memories return

Stock Car Racing History

As a kid, I truly enjoyed playing with my Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars as well as any other cheap imitation. One of THE BEST toys I got was when my mother bought a big box of random orange hot wheels track at a yard sale. Track, connectors, loops, clamps for anchoring sharp drops, battery powered acceleration stations, etc. As excited as I was about her finding it on the cheap (well, she benefited from the cheap part), I was equally PO'd when she boxed it up and sold it. As I recall, she thought we were pretty well done playing with it. Our frequency of setting up the tracks may have diminished, but I still enjoyed it. Nonetheless, it was gone - hopefully to another kid whose eyes lit up upon receiving it.

Another great gift I received was from Santa one year. I got the coveted Thundershift 500 NASCAR styled track.

The track came with 2 cars - one of which was a late 70s Mercury similar to what Pearson and Bobby Allison raced. Best case scenario would have been for the package to include a 74 Dodge Charger. But hey, beggars can't be choosy. At least the cars included LOOKED like NASCAR racers vs. radical looking themed cars. I liked that kind too - but to have NASCAR-esque cars for a NASCAR-ish track was so cool.

Those days are long gone obviously. As a dad myself, I made sure my now college-aged son had his share of cars. He never quite enjoyed his the way I did mine though. (He was more of a LEGO boy.) Yet, I often wondered what happened to my cars.

My mother doesn't throw away ANYTHING. She might re-sell something at a yard sale that she bought at a yard sale. But rarely has she simply pitched anything - especially if it belonged to my sister, my brother or me. So I've been convinced for years that my cars were somewhere in her house.

She looked multiple times, and she always came back with the same answer and same apology. "They aren't here, and I'm so sorry." Then last week, she texted and said "Are these yours?" with a photo of 4 trays of 1:64 scale cars. I did the happy dance at my desk as I replied YES.

She and my sister had been re-arranging things in one of those pre-fab storage barns. They weren't tossing things - merely arranging them. So in some respects, my toy cars are a barn find!

I picked them up from her house Labor Day as I visited my folks. (I'm pretty sure I had my own version of the Southern 500 back then when we had an early day off from fall's return to school.)

I still need to go through each of the 8 trays - 4 double stacked - to refresh my memory of what I had (and have again). But a few immediately jumped out at me from the upper stack.

A Matchbox nicknamed The Big Banger - I'm sure that engine was a Hemi

The Mercury from the Thundershift 500 game - colored red similar to the CAM2 Penske Merc. It's pretty obvious the TS500 game awarded its share of Darlington Stripes.

A Hot Wheels Camaro (I think). It's missing it's hood and left side A-post, and the axles are bent all to hell. But looks like I repainted it with white paint and a blue 15. I'm laughing as I look at it and wonder why I created a Bud Moore 70s era tribute car.

Though I didn't know about the [ 73 Richmond race ] at the time, maybe in the back of my mind I somehow knew about DW's wrecking of Bud Moore's Ford that resulted in a big backstretch fire.

updated by @tmc-chase: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM

Joe Falk owned team at Richmond - Donlavey tribute

Stock Car Racing History

Bob Pockrass just posted this to Instagram and Twitter. The current Joe Falk team (former RCR team) that normally runs 33 will run 90 with the 1970s-early 80s Truxmore colors at Richmond this weekend in honor of Junie Donlavey. Class move.

updated by @tmc-chase: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM

No Legendtorials to Be Written on Monday Nights

General

"Subhuman" Yep, Tim has an unbiased, objective, relevant, constructive, insightful opinion of this television series. Ha.

No Legendtorials to Be Written on Monday Nights

General

Oooh. Yeah, not sure about that. I think we've seen his dancing skills in one of those NAPA commercials.

Like Almirola, Allmendinger, Kahne, Newman & Biffle in the upcoming Chase, I don't think we'll see MW make it out of the first round.