Dennis, right you are. The following is from an old column in Stock Car Racing Magazine:
The last dirt track race we (NASCAR's top division) ran was at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds Speedway in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was a 100-miler on a half-mile track. The date was September 30, 1970. John Sears, a drivers dirt track racer, won the pole and led the first 10 laps. Then Benny Parsons took the lead and led from lap 11 through lap 88. I took over on lap 89 and led the rest of the race, which was through lap 200. I think I averaged about 68 miles per hour. Neil Castles finished second, Bobby Isaac third, James Hylton fourth, and Cecil Gordon fifth. Bobby Allison finished sixth.
Now, I want to tell you something about how we won the race. At Petty Enterprises we didn't have a car built exclusively for dirt track racing. We were running the Plymouth SuperBird on the big speedways and the regular Plymouths on the paved short tracks. But we remembered selling driver Jabe Thomas and team owner Don Robertson a '69 Plymouth built for dirt track racing, or let's say it was better suited for dirt than anything we had to race at our shop. So what we did was borrow that car from Jabe and Don. We put one of our engines in the car and won the race. Then we returned it to Jabe and Don and left our engine in the car as a payment.
The other two dirt track races that year were at Columbia Speedway in Columbia, South Carolina. That track was as hard as asphalt. We ran the first race at Columbia that year on April 30. We did the same car-borrowing then. That was the first time we borrowed our old car back from Jabe and Don. We were lucky enough to win that race, too. Bobby Allison finished second and Bobby Isaac third. Neil Castles ran fourth and James Hylton fifth.
We did the same thing after the win, too. We turned the car back over to Jabe and Don with one of our engines in it. What you must remember is that back in the early days of stock car racing, we ran a lot of state fairgrounds tracks, and they were all dirt. In fact, I don't remember Hillsborough, North Carolina, having guard railings for a long time. You ran off the track going into the third turn, and you drove off down into a pine thicket. Nope, racing wasn't always as prim and proper as it is now.
By Richard Petty
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
