1968 - Richard Petty banks his 89th Grand National victory by winning the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville by 3 laps over second place finisher Cale Yarborough.
Photo courtesy of and credit to Smyle Media
TMC
Pretty proud of this one. I got contributions from several folks including Racers Reunion's Chris Hussey and former crew chief Steve Hmiel. Originally published by me here:
http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-16-this-day-in-petty-history.html
1979 - Richard Petty wins his 189th career race by nipping Donnie Allison in the CRC Chemicals 500 at Dover. In doing so, he closes the points gap on Darrell Waltrip as he pursues his seventh Grand National / Winston Cup championship.
I've also got a yellowed-copy of this picture I clipped from Southern MotoRacing bi-weekly racing newspaper.
We never had a lot of cars. We built a new car every fall, and it went to Daytona. The previous year's car was then used as the short track car, and we sold the oldest one. In fact, the car that was wrecked at Daytona with Pearson was repaired and ran at Rockingham 2 weeks later. When we switched to GM, we built an Olds for the superspeedways and had 2 Monte Carlos for everywhere else. I left in 1982, and we never had a road-race specific car. We just used one of the short track cars. In 1983, the JD Stacy bunch built a really nice road race only car for Joe Ruttman, and by 1984 most of the rest of the teams had one too. The main differences were we took the left turn offset out of the suspension and moved oil tank, ignition boxes, battery, etc. to the right side. You can't do that with the current rules.
Cover of race program I nabbed from an ebay listing.
TMC
The following was originally posted by me today as one of three wins by The King on September 15 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.
Orange Speedway was originally known as Occoneechee Speedway. Say it with me now: Oh-Ko-Knee-Chee. Also, I've seen the town where the track was located spelled as Hillsboro and Hillsborough. The speedway was a 9/10 mile dirt track and was one of the original tracks sanctioned by NASCAR for its Grand National series.
As the series experienced growing pains from the late 60s through the early 70s, Orange Speedway disappeared from the schedule as another superspeedway - Talladega - opened in 1969. However, a group of committed fans and former racers have labored hard to keep the memories of the speedway alive with the formation of the [ Historic Speedway Group ].
In his book [ Silent Speedways of the Carolinas ], author and fellow Racers Reunion 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)
TMC
Noticed that as well Dave on a review of this race last night. I might understand if Junie and Mel Joseph worked out mutual favors for a local - but Dick May wasn't. And I would understand if Truxmore was based in the Delaware-Baltimore-Philly area - but they weren't. And Dover certainly didn't pay big money to bring a 2nd S&P team. So would be fun to learn why Junie chose to run the 2nd car - especially when it was parked so early.
Race program from Motor Racing Programme Covers
Another race report from Free Lance Star
Originally published by me here as part of my on-going series about each of Richard Petty's 200 wins:
https://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-14-this-day-in-petty-history.html
1975 - Richard wins his 174th race the hard way and in dramatic fashion in the Delaware 500 at Dover. He leads much of the race and builds a sizable lead. But with about 150 laps to go, he has problems, pits, and is lapped eight times . Yet he un-laps himself down the stretch and still manages to win the race.
Greg Fielden writes in [ Forty Years of Stock Car Racing - The Modern Era ]:
Buddy Arrington, running over 50 laps behind, parked his Plymouth in a turn in an effort to bring out the day's fifth and final caution flag with less than 15 miles remaining. NASCAR officials decided Arrington's car was out of the main racing groove and left the green light on. Arrington drove the car to the pits and after talking with his pit crew, drove back on to the track and parked in the upper groove in the third turn. He waited there until NASCAR dropped the yellow flag. The caution period enabled Petty to close the gap on leaders Dick Brooks and Benny Parsons... After the yellow flag came out, Arrington drove to the pit area where NASCAR black-flagged him for the day. But the damage had been done. Petty, manning the fastest car in the race, drove around Brooks and Parsons with nine laps to to go and won going away... Arrington had just purchased a car-hauler from Petty Enterprises..."I couldn't have won without that last caution flag," Petty admitted. "I don't know anything about that, so I'd best not say anything about it." pp. 140-141
The King closes the gap on Bobby Allison in his #16 American Motors Matador and Jabe Thomas in #25.
A few shots from back in the day at Nashville Speedway. As a kid, it was one of the craziest things I ever witnessed. My heart was pumping hard enough to tear through my chest.
(Nashville also hosted one of lamest events I remember seeing. A Uniroyal team of 3 people - with silly performance names of Uni, Roy, and Al.)
