Racing History Minute - 1968 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
Three color images of the Mausgrover - Wolland wreck from the Daytona paper .
Forum Activity for @tmc-chase
Stock Car Racing History
Racing History Minute - 1968 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
Spartanburg Herald Journal report about the rained-out twins. Interesting - and funny - to read the various strategies about racing the twins on a wet track including:
- Conservative approach - don't wreck car we plan to use on Sunday
- A true racer - we came here to race. Drop the flag, and we'll go.
- A Snidely Whiplash devious strategy - start the first twin and eliminate half our competition for Sunday!
All became a moot point once the races were cancelled.
A lost trade and art - hand numbering and lettering a car.
Future NASCAR GN / Cup regular and champion Benny Parsons won the pole for the ARCA 300 race with ARCA regular Iggy Katona qualifying 2nd. Andy Hampton won the race. From DBMJ .
In the ARCA 300, Bobby Mausgrover and Gerry Wollard tangled together for a spectacular accident. Fortunately both turned out to be OK. From DBMJ . ARCA's official website has a [ feature article ] about the accident.
From Stacy Todd
In the 500, a couple of the USAC regulars - Hurtubise and Hartman - had a tough go of it. Herk was done though Butch soldiered on to a top 20 finish.
And why did Chris Economaki climb on the hood of Cale's winning 21 Wood Brothers Ford? Because that's where the news was!
Racing History Minute - 1968 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
Alabama's Alton Jones finished 29th in the Permatex 300 Sportsman race.
Though from Alabama, I remember him racing at Nashville's fairgrounds speedway. He was the 1976 track late model champion - the year we started going regularly on Saturday nights. Sterling Marlin was a rookie, and Mike Alexander was only in his 2nd year of racing. - from my collection
Bunkie Blackburn won the Permatex race driving for Ray Fox.
Cale's win and FoMoCo's sweep of top two spots was the logical choice for the headline of National Speed Sport News - from Russ Thompson
And though Cale's win was featured in the June 1968 issue of Stock Car Racing, it took a back seat for the cover to the Petty team's struggle with the experimental roof.
Racing History Minute - 1968 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
I don't know of any Canadians in our family tree. My great-grandfather "Papa Leming" was a railroad man. As far as I know, he was a life long Tennessean. Don't know much about the Leming side before him. Maybe we need to lobby Gilder to start a LemingReunion.com site!
Racing History Minute - 1968 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
Race program
Looks like the cars were indeed lined up and ready to roll for the first qualifying twin - before the rains began to fall. from Ray Lamm
Not sure if this is practice or qualifying - but this picture from Dennis Andrews sure looks as if dark skies were present and rain was looming.
When race day arrived, however, the rain was gone and the green flag waved. Front row was Cale on the pole with King Richard alongside him. - from Ray Lamm
All sorts of USAC open wheel & stock car regulars made a start in the 500 including...
A.J. Foyt - Dennis Andrews
Defending 500 winner Mario Andretti - back with Holman & Moody but with completely different look - Ray Lamm
Butch Hartman - Robbie Solesbee
Jim Hurtubise - Dennis Andrews
And Al Unser Sr - Dennis Andrews
A really neat image in the RacersReunion photo collection is a personal letter from the VP of Sales & Marketing of Permatex to Billy Scott inviting him to participate in the Permatex 300 sportsman race. - Billy and Barbara Scott
Racing History Minute - 1968 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
Tim - As I've mentioned to you in the past, one of my uncles also intro'd me to racing. Matter of fact, his last name is coincidentally spelled only one letter different than yours: Ronald LEMING. He too is a navy vet - served in the 1950s. Interesting your mention about the envelope of clippings. Uncle Ronald has worked construction for as long as I've known him. From the mid 1970s through the late 1980s, he had the opportunity to work overseas on jobs in Tanzania Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. As you might expect, NASCAR news wasn't all that plentiful. In my senior year of HS and in college, I maintained 2 subscriptions to Southern MotoRacing. One was for me to read and clip. The other I packaged along with some news clippings from The Tennessean - AP stories or Larry Woody columns - and sent to Ronald every few weeks. Every so often even today, he'll mention how he was glad to get those papers to keep up with racing.
Today's Winter Weather
General
I know many of you in Georgia and the Carolinas may be getting blasted today with more winter weather. If so, I suppose your favorite old school race driver at the moment may be former ARCA and USAC stock car regular ... Les Snow.
updated by @tmc-chase: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM
Apology to Tim Leeming
Stock Car Racing History
LOL. Glad you caught that. I was all tee'd up with a reply that might have prompted this response from you to me.
