On the same Sunday afternoon of November 2, 1975, that North Carolinian, Petty was beating Virginian, Pond in the Tennessee Cup race, a Virginian was spinning out a North Carolina rival to win a huge outlaw dirt track race in Virginia that saw 134 cars attempt to qualify..
Earlier this summer, "Coastal" Jack Walker highlighted this race on his historic race segment during the Tuesday night RR Racing Through History broadcast. The dirt track late model crowd had gathered at Saluda, Virginia, near the banks of the Rappahannock River for 200 laps of mayhem. On the site of the former old ramshackle Virginia Raceway today sits Billy Sawyer's pristine Virginia Motor Speedway. Although Sawyer has changed the address to the more exotic sounding Jamaica, Virginia , it is the same plot of dirt that once hosted some real bump and run dirt track racers back in the 60s & 70s.
The ever popular Al Grinnan , former NASCAR Most Popular Modified Driver, NASCAR Virginia State Late Model Sportsman Champion and a multi-time champ at the Wilson County Speedway in North Carolina was ready to take on an old rival from North Carolina's Chantilly Speedway and Wilson County Speedway. That would be the equally popular Joe Huss of Roanoke Rapids, a high school English teacher who once thrilled the locals driving his hemi-powered Plymouth on the tiny quarter-mile dirt oval in Weldon and later traded paint with RR member, Wayne Andrews and others on NASCAR's GT/Grand American Series.
Pole sitter, Frankie Burnham, who used to drive for our late member, Jack Carter's father, won the pole and crashed on lap 1.
The biggest controversy of the day occurred when race winner Grinnan contacted the Huss car and it went spinning. That, though, was just the beginning of troubles for Joe Huss on his trip to Virginia's Northern Neck country. Before the day was over he would be hospitalized. Those boys really played rough.
Fredericksburg, Va. Free Lance Star
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
