BELTSVILLE 100 April 26, 1970

BELTSVILLE 100

Beltsville Speedway

Beltsville, Maryland

Sunday, April 26, 1970

Grand American race #8 of 1970 was held at Beltsville Speedway a 1/2 mile paved oval. Tiny Lund started on the pole with a record setting time trial run of 21.59 seconds (83.333 MPH) and went on to win his seventh race in a row in a Ronnie Hopkins prepared Camaro. Lund garnered $1,200 of the $8,360 purse.

Fin Srt Car # Driver Car Laps Reason out

1 1 55 Tiny Lund 70 Camaro 200 Running

2 5 87 Buck Baker 70 Firebird 200 Running

3 3 14 Jim Paschal 70 Javelin 200 Running

4 9 44 Ken Rush 69 Camaro 199 Running

5 8 42 Charlie Blanton 69 Camaro 197 Running

6 6 7 Jimmy Vaughn 68 Camaro 191 Running

7 12 0 Bob Ballantine 68 Camaro 190 Running

8 13 26 Richard Childress 68 Camaro 189 Running

9 14 92 Paul Tyler 69 Firebird 188 Running

10 17 8 Phil Wills 69 Camaro 187 Running

11 10 88 T. C. Hunt 68 Camaro 185 Running

12 18 17 Ernie Shaw 68 Mustang 183 Running

13 22 9 Stan Starr, Sr. 68 Camaro 174

14 23 39 Earl Briggs 69 Camaro 173

15 19 54 Bobby Fleming 68 Camaro 171

16 4 15 Wayne Andrews 70 Cougar 159 A-frame

17 2 48 Sonny Hutchins 70 Camaro 148

18 11 59 Harvey Henderson 70 Cougar 98

19 7 21 Frank Sessoms 68 Camaro 68

20 16 66 Phil Kendrick 68 Camaro 60

Beltsville was one of my all-time favorite places to see a race. I see ole Sonny started on the front row, but didn't finish.

The winner - from Anne B. Jones book, All Around The Track:Oral Histories of Drivers, Mechanics, Officials, Owners, Journalists and Others in Motorsports Past and Present

Ha... I didn't recall the Phillips 66 pole sign at Beltsville. That must have provided some real political fodder with NASCAR.

This may have been Harvey Henderson's last NASCAR race. According to Ultimate Racing History his first NASCAR race was in 1952 at Palm Beach and he ran again that year at Langhorne. He was a regular in '55 and '56 running 35 events. He ran once in '57 at Old Bridge Stadium and at Champion Speedway, Old Dominion and Hagerstown (ARCA) in '58.

Harvey ran once in '61 in a Grand National race at Richmond and once in '63 in a Modified race at Old Dominion. He did not run again until '69 again at Old Dominion in a Late Model Sportsman race. The last race recorded was this event at Beltsville in Tom Pistone's Cougar.

Harvey was still running Late Model Sportsman at Old Dominion in the 1970 and 1971 seasons:

In 1979, The St. Petersburg Times carried a story about Harvey flying from Maryland to Florida to throw a surprise 60th Anniversary party for his parents.

Dave, I see GA regulars Herman Wells and Pee Wee Wentz running there too.

Herman, from Petersburg, ran with us at Southside Speedway every Friday night, while Pee Wee competed often at South Boston.

Herman was still racing at Southside Speedway as late as 1983. When the Late Model Sportsman cars disappeared in 1982, Herman switched to Late Model Stock Cars as seen in the 1983 Woody Delbridge photo below:

Bump