AUGUSTA GT 200 June 28, 1969

AUGUSTA GT 200

Augusta, Ga. June 28, 1969

The 14th Grand Touring race of 1969 was held at Augusta International Raceway and was 200 laps on the 1/2 mile paved oval. Pete Hamilton qualified on the pole and led the first 121 laps before Wayne Andrews took over and led thru lap 178 when Hamilton went back out front and stayed there the rest of the way to record his 5^th win of the season. There were 4 cautions for 22 laps.

Personal note: I was in the grandstand with my Uncle James for this race. That Hamilton Camaro was fast. As I recall in the first part of the race he would pull out to about a straight away lead and hold it. He lost the lead when he was black flagged after a restart. The officials said he passed the pace car or something like that and lost the lead when he made the pass thru penalty. Dad had almost a lap lead when Pete came back out. As the laps counted down I kept measuring Dads lead as it went to a lap, then a straight away, then coming off two as Pete entered one. By now I was worried he would catch him before the laps ran out and he did with 22 to go. I knew Dad had another second place finish if nothing happened because he had a good gap on T.C.. Second aint bad but it was disappointing to be the second fastest car again.

Dennis, I recall that Pete Hamilton Camaro sounding like the later Junior Johnson Cup cars with the 180 degree headers. No other car in GT sounded like the Gene White / Pete Hamilton car with its high pitched screech.

Good story i no them AIRPS guys in Augusta GA will love it

Yes Dave. Dad said Pete ran the 180 degree headers some and Tiny ran them some but can't remember what year. Dad tried the 180 degree headers on the late model sportsman cars but not on the small block GT/GA cars. They either ran conventional headers with exhaust pipe for each bank or they ran an H pipe.

Thanks Leon. I hope the AIRPS guys will comment.

Well, I am now one of those AIRPS guys and I love this story! Great sharing something so descriptive and entertaining. Thank you Dennis.

Dennis it is so awesome having your Dad as an encyclopedia of information about the GT/Grand American days. Thanks for asking him about the headers.

Thanks for the reply James. I thought that was the same car. I've seen a few pictures of what I thought was the same car with different numbers. What numbers did your dad run on the car? The race result here shows 42 but I remember it being 43.

This is from Talladega in 1969 before the Bama 400.

Not sure where this one was taken.

I've seen one with the #42 but do not have a copy.

Sorry, can't help on the cell phone. I can only talk and text on mine.

If your phone has email and web on it, go to this page.

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/photo/photo/newWithUploader

At the bottom of the page, you should see an email address that includes part of your user name followed by "@stockcar.racersreunion.com".

You can email pictures from your phone to that address to upload and then edit them at RacersReunion. Hope that helps.