Forum Activity for @tmc-chase

November 14, 1971: Richard Petty wins Capital City 500 and his 3rd Title

Stock Car Racing History

Notes column from American 500 2 weeks before the rescheduled Richmond race. From Spartanburg Herald

November 14, 1971: Richard Petty wins Capital City 500 and his 3rd Title

Stock Car Racing History

Another possibility - maybe the 3 car simply wasn't ready. Two weeks before the Richmond race, Glotzbach wrecked the 3 Chevy at Rockingham. Neither the 3 nor the 98 cars raced the following week at Middle Georgia. Richmond wasn't originally scheduled for November, so perhaps the rebuild of the 3 car wasn't done yet. Possible they pulled the 98 off the shelf to race it instead?

If that was indeed the case - that the Howard team swapped cars for Glotzbach between September and November - its interesting that NASCAR still allowed him to start 2nd.

November 14, 1971: Richard Petty wins Capital City 500 and his 3rd Title

Stock Car Racing History

Don't have an answer for you Dave. The twin Richard Howard / Junior Johnson Chevys were featured on the cover of the Feb 1972 issue of Stock Car Racing magazine. I'm guessing the photo shoot for the cover was done in late 1971 though I don't know for certain. Speculation here - but is it possible Junior trotted out the 'best available car' when needed regardless of number, kind of like what the Pettys did in the early through mid 60s?

November 14, 1971: Richard Petty wins Capital City 500 and his 3rd Title

Stock Car Racing History

Back on November 14, 2011, I posted a blog entry about Richard Petty's win in the 1971 Capital City 500 at Richmond. I did so as part of my blog series about each of Petty's 200 wins. But looking back, I really didn't include as much about the race as I could have as I was trying to blow through so many posts in a quick period of time. Here is a link to that original blog entry:

https://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/11/november-14-this-day-in-petty-history_14.html

And I posted about it here on RacersReunion here where some good comments were noted by Dave Fulton:

http://racersreunion.com/community/forum/stock-car-racing-history/10070/november-14-petty-wins-at-augusta-and-richmond

To tie in with Tim Leeming's Racing History Minute series, I thought I'd a bit more material about the race here.

By merely starting the race, the King clinched his third NASCAR Grand National championship and his first (and the sponsor's first) title as the Winston Cup.

The race was originally scheduled for September 12. First round qualifying was held on September 10, and the pole winner certainly had a deep Virginia flavor to it. Virginian Bill Dennis won the pole in Virginian Junie Donlavey's Ford on the Richmond, Virginia half-mile track.

Source: Spartanburg Herald

However, steady rains on race day forced the postponement of the race until October 3rd.

The teams returned in early October, and the race was rained out a second time. Source: Wilmington Star-News

The race was then rescheduled yet again for November 14 - sandwiched between late season races at Middle Georgia Raceway in Macon and North Wilkesboro. Some participants believed in superstitions and such ( *cough* David Pearson, Bobby Isaac). Billy Wood was brought in to the race to hex the field in FAVOR of Isaac. Dave Fulton started a good post about Billy Wood's peculiar behaviors here:

http://racersreunion.com/community/forum/general/10072/billy-wood-his-hexes-at-the-nascar-tracks

The few newspaper reports of the race I found were sparse and pretty much all the same - a limited AP wire service report indicating Petty won the race by a lap over 2nd place Bobby Allison. I'm guessing that after 2 attempts to run the race in September and October that sports editors (and the writers) weren't chomping at the bit to return to Richmond a 3rd time. The better write-up of the race is the article shared with me by Jerry Bushmire and included in my blog post. I think it is from Southern Motorsports Journal.

Fin	Driver	Car
1	Richard Petty	'71 Plymouth
2	Bobby Allison	'71 Ford
3	Pete Hamilton	'71 Plymouth
4	Charlie Glotzbach	'71 Chevrolet
5	Elmo Langley	'71 Ford
6	Neil Castles	'70 Dodge
7	James Hylton	'69 Ford
8	John Sears	'69 Dodge
9	Cecil Gordon	'69 Mercury
10	Frank Warren	'69 Dodge
11	Walter Ballard	'71 Ford
12	Eddie Yarboro	'69 Plymouth
13	James Cox	'69 Plymouth
14	Bill Dennis	'69 Mercury
15	Henley Gray	'69 Ford
16	Jabe Thomas	'70 Plymouth
17	Bill Hollar	'69 Ford
18	Ed Negre	'69 Ford
19	J.D. McDuffie	'71 Chevrolet
20	Richard Childress	'70 Chevrolet
21	Phil Finney	'69 Chevrolet
22	D.K. Ulrich	'71 Ford
23	Earl Brooks	'69 Ford
24	Bobby Mausgrover	'69 Dodge
25	Benny Parsons	'71 Ford
26	Bill Seifert	'69 Ford
27	Bill Shirey	'69 Dodge
28	Wendell Scott	'69 Ford
29	Bill Champion	'71 Ford
30	Gordon Birkett	'69 Chevrolet

updated by @tmc-chase: 11/14/20 10:55:00AM

Racing History Minute - November 14, 1965

Stock Car Racing History

Harvey also has a couple of Tiny Lund photos from Augusta. I'm not enough of a car guy to determine which year these were taken. But Tiny did run both 1965 races and the 1967 season opener held in November 1966. So my bet is at least one of these is from the November 1965 race.

First one

Second one

And this one is from November 1965 race after falling out with a broken distributor .

updated by @tmc-chase: 11/14/17 10:08:11AM

Racing History Minute - November 14, 1965

Stock Car Racing History

Harvey Tollison has several photos in his collection from this race.

Ad for the race ( from here )

I think these may be from the start of this 1965 race . Look at the cars for the 1st few rows and see if you agree:

• Row 1 - Petty and Bobby Isaac (26)
• Row 2 - Ned Jarrett (11) and Tiger Tom (59)
• Row 3 - Elmo Langley (64) and Jim Paschal (10)
• Row 4 - Bobby Johns (7) and Jabe Thomas (25)

JT Putney loses an engine . That's Cale Yarborough in Red Myler's #06 Ford ducking low to avoid Putney.

Buddy Baker loses a tire . That's Bobby Isaac high side in 26, Allen McMillion low side in 80, and Ned Jarrett alongside Baker's 3-wheeler.

Johnny Bruner gives chase to the runaway tire.

Harvey said this pic of  Wendell Scott is from 1965 also. I'm not sure which race from that year though. However, he does mention Wendell pitting his own car.

King Richard in victory lane

And another with finishing order

updated by @tmc-chase: 11/14/17 10:07:26AM

Racing History Minute - November 14, 1965

Stock Car Racing History

Here is the link to my 2011 blog post about Petty's win in the 1965 Augusta race.

https://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2011/11/november-14-this-day-in-petty-history.html

Richard won in car #42 - his final win in a car numbered something other than 43. Don Smyle shared this photo with me of the King getting rewarded with a fresh Pepsi after his winning day.

updated by @tmc-chase: 11/14/20 11:01:45AM

Racing History Minute - November 13, 1955

Stock Car Racing History

Tiger Tom Pistone completed 199 of the race's 200 laps. He is shown dead last in the finishing order. Tiger told me he finished 5th on the track but was disqualified by John Bruner Sr. after a protest by Lee Petty and a NASCAR post-race inspection.

Racing History Minute - November 13, 1955

Stock Car Racing History

When the Joe Weatherly museum opened at Darlington in 1965, looks like the plan was to permanently house the Buddy Shuman Award and the NASCAR GN series winner trophies there with symbolic replicas presented to the annual winners. I'm curious how long this tradition continued. With RJR's entrance into the sport in 71, I think all the title winners got their own Winston Cup trophies. But I don't know about the Buddy Shuman one. With ISC's renaming of the museum and later paring down of it, I seriously doubt this tradition continues today.

Source: Spartanburg Herald

Racing History Minute - November 13, 1955

Stock Car Racing History

Speaking of Buddy Shuman Award, we had the pleasure of meeting a past winner of the award in Phoenix: Dr. Jerry Punch.