Interesting coincidence. We had a rash of those cheesy program covers in the 80s - including a cheesy gunslinger one for one of our Richmond Wrangler races that I want to say had DW & Dale, but the memory is getting dim.
SPORTS
Sauter Expected To Drive Dingmans' Pontiac In Pepsi 400
By Beth Rhodes of The Sentinel Staff, June 28, 1989
With qualifying two days away, the Dingman Brothers Racing team announced Tuesday that Jim Sauter will be behind the wheel of their Pontiac when practice opens today for the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Well, maybe.Sauter was en route from Michigan, where he had been setting up IROC cars, to Virginia, to work on another race deal, when John Erickson of Pontiac Motorsports called his Necedah, Wis., home to offer him the ride in the Dingman's car.''So far he doesn't know he's supposed to go down there,'' said his wife, Penny, as she awaited his call Tuesday to tell him to head to Daytona.
The #50 was Greg Sacks in the Dingman Brothers Pontiac.
Ironically (or not) Sauter would later start one Cup race for the Dingman Brothers in 1989.
Wish I could help. I did a very limited search and see this b&w of Tommy in a 125 at Daytona in 1987 in the Freedlander car and also found a video. I'm guessing this is the crash? That would limit the search to a 1987 edition of SCR.
Wonder if the Richmond track was on one of those odd / even watering days like we get here in Charlotte during hot weather?
One year at Charlotte they had to red flag the race when a sewer line ruptured and raw sewage was coming out of the backstretch grandstand and across the backstretch.
But, I have never seen sprinklers go off during the event.
Also, at Charlotte, all during the summer, track superintendent Harvey Walters used to have big sprinklers shooting water on turn 4 all day during hot weather to try to keep the asphalt from buckling where it kept rippling.
Anyting to differentiate yourself and get a little extra PR I guess!
They used to sponsor some of the Portland races.
Thanks, Chase.
Here's a 1963 photo of Art Watts at Portland posted at the site www.DONHALLRACING.com :
Best I can figure, the Portland oval is now a ghost track, closing for good in 2002, unable to deal with various restrictions.
A few notes about Portland:
* Hershel McGriff and Greg Biffle both got their starts at Portland Speedway.
* I sponsored a winning Winston West car at Portland Speedway in 1984 when Derrike Cope won in his George Jefferson / 7-Eleven Ford.
* Jefferson also owned and built a winning Portland Speedway Winston West car for his brother, Harry Jefferson in 1976. Female driver, Janet Guthrie made her only NASCAR Winston West career start in that race, starting and finishing 14th.
* Cope went on to win a 2nd Portland Speedway Winston West race in 1988 in a Chevy.
* I found an extraordinarily high number of Google News Archive national stories reporting fatalaties at the Portland track in all types of events through the years.
