Forum Activity for @tmc-chase

Racing History Minute, June 3, 1965

Stock Car Racing History

This was a Thursday night race at Nashville. In years prior, Nashville ran Sunday afternoon races. And in the years to follow, Nashville ran Saturday night races. But for this inaugural night race, the lights were illuminated on a Thursday evening.

As for news clippings about the race, they're hard to find on-line. Guess I'm due for another trip to the Nashville library during a lunch break for a microfilm study.

Tim referenced the apathy of the fans in 1965 as Chrysler boycotted the early part of the NASCAR GN season. But it wasn't as if the Mopar guys were sidelined completely. While the GN crowd raced on without the Plymouth or Dodge teams, Petty Enterprises soldiered on with a drag racing program. On the same day Dick Hutcherson snagged the Nashville trophy, Richard Petty set a new drag racing ET just a few hours to the east in Bristol.

Paging USAC Stock Car Fans

Stock Car Racing History

Looking for someone who may have been at the USAC stock car race in April 1975. It was a USAC double-feature affair. Super Tex won the stock car opener, and Johnny Rutherford won the open wheel headliner. Bobby Unser finished 2nd in the stock car race in a #2 Plymouth owned by Norm Nelson.

I have a picture with a portion of Unser's car. But I'm looking for a better one. Please let me know if you have one to share - or if you can direct me to another individual or website where I may be able to view one.

Thanks.

updated by @tmc-chase: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM

Racing History Minute - June 2, 1961

Stock Car Racing History

Its a good question, and one for which I don't have an answer. To my knowledge, Julian "J.H." / "Julie" Petty's team was always a Greensboro NC operation separate from Petty Enterprises. Several weeks ago, I stumbled across this 1958 article noting he sold his convertible operation to Roy Tyner - with the idea Bob Welborn would continue driving it.

But we know he was still around in the late 50s and early 60s fielding GN cars for drivers such as Paschal and Rex White. After that, the trail has gone cold for me. Its interesting that I don't think I've ever heard Richard refer to his uncle any time he is interviewed about racing in the ol' days. I've heard Kyle refer to "Uncle Julie" a time or two over the years. But Julian's racing ventures clearly aren't considered part of the history of Petty Enterprises.

I'll have to dig back into the archives to see what more I can stumble across. I'm not even sure what year he passed away.

updated by @tmc-chase: 03/23/17 09:03:35AM

Racing History Minute - June 2, 1961

Stock Car Racing History

This entry will complete my trio of weekend offerings to Tim Leeming's Racing Minute. Hopefully, I'll return you to your regular contributor beginning Monday, June 3.

First - a happy birthday to my dad. 78 years old today. And a happy birthday to Kyle Petty - 53 years old today. Here is a photo I took of Kyle at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway on June 3, 1978 - one day after he turned 18.

Today's history minute returns us to the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds in Spartanburg, SC for the 25th race of a 52-race season in 1961. The Spartanburg Herald Journal gave a lot of columnar inches to promote the race.

Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal

A Who's Who of NASCAR legends made up most of the top 10 starters. Joe Weatherly in Bud Moore's Pontiac won the pole - however, he led zero laps, wrecked around lap 70, and finished 14th in the 21-car field.

Cotton Owens started alongside Little Joe. The rest of the top 10 starters were NASCAR Hall of Famer Buck Baker and Jack Smith on row 2, NASCAR Hall of Famers Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson in row 3, Rex White and the future King - Richard Petty - in row 4, and Doug Cox and Darel Dieringer rounding out the top 10.

Hometown hotshoe Cotton dominated the 100-mile race. He led 180 of the 200 laps. About a third of the way through the race, Cotton moved Weatherly out of the way as he made a pass. Weatherly spun, and he wiped out R. Petty as he attempted to get going back in the right direction. Both were done for the night.

With the checkers in sight, Owens broke a wheel - perhaps related somehow to the earlier incident with Weatherly. Maybe, maybe not. But Jim Paschal took the lead from Cotton and nabbed his first victory in three years. Paschal would later drive a number of races for Petty Enterprises. But on June 2, 1961, he raced a Pontiac fielded by Lee's brother - Julian Petty. Prior to Spartanburg, Paschal's last GN win was in July 1958 in a Chevrolet at McCormick Field in Asheville, NC - coincidentally fielded by Julian.

Cotton settled for second - two laps down to Paschal. Maurice Petty finished third for his best career finish as a driver. Chief started deep in the field - 19th, and his 3rd place finish came with an assist from his older brother. Richard took over Maurice's #41 Plymouth in relief after his own Plymouth was sidelined after being in the wreck with Weatherly.

The top 5 finishers were:

1. Jim Paschal

2. Cotton Owens

3. Maurice Petty (career best)

4. Herman Beam (career best)

5. Ned Jarrett

Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal

updated by @tmc-chase: 03/23/17 09:01:15AM

Racing History Minute - June 1, 1957

Stock Car Racing History

Doing my best to fill in for Tim Leeming today...

Today's racing history minute takes us to Lancaster Speedway in Lancaster, South Carolina. Lancaster is about 5 miles south of the NC-SC border, about a half-hour from the metropolis of Rock Hill SC, and about 45 minutes south of Charlotte. Lancaster's half-mile, dirt track hosted only two Grand National races - both in 1957.

Buck Baker won the pole for the 200-lap, 100-mile race with Fireball Roberts to his outside. Jack Smith and Speedy Thompson made up row two. Thompson won the second GN race at Lancaster on July 30, 1957.

As with many races of the 1950s era - particularly the bull-ring, short-track races scattered about the country - good records were not maintained by NASCAR of lap leaders. The only documented lap leader was for the race winner at lap 200: 7th place starter Paul Goldsmith in Smokey Yunick's #3 Ford.

According to Greg Fielden in his Forty Years of Stock Car Racing - Vol. 1:

Paul Goldsmith ran down Buck Baker late in the race and won the 100-mile event at Lancaster Speedway. It was the third win of the year for the Ford driving speedster.

Goldsmith's 61.622 MPH triumph came just as there much speculation of a massive pull-out by factory racing teams. Auto manufacturers were considering a 100 percent retreat following the Martinsville tragedy on May 19, and a more recent short track, Modified race at Clarion, PA in which two children, age 8 and 12, were killed by a flying wheel from a race car.

The top 5 finishers were:

1. Paul Goldsmith, Ford, 200, $700

2. Buck Baker, Chevrolet, 200, $525

3. Lee Petty, Oldsmobile, 199, $400

4. Marvin Panch, Ford, 198, $330

5. Speedy Thompson, Chevrolet, 198, $270

Jack Smith was 6th , and Fireball finished 14th. Other notables included Jim Paschal (7th), Dick Beaty (8th), Tiny Lund (12th), Cotton Owens (13th), Billy Myers (15th) and Jimmie Lewallen (17th and last).

Fielden's account of the race mentioned tragic accidents at Martinsville and Clarion PA. The Martinsville accident was recently discussed in a RR forum post here . And here is an article about the unfortunate accident at Clarion:

Source: Beaver Valley Times

And as predicted, the auto manufacturers withdrew from racing less than a week after the Lancaster race. Source: Milwaukee Sentinel

Despite the news, Big Bill France remained bullish on the future of auto racing.

Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal

Lancaster Speedway continues operations today. Here is a bit of history of Lancaster from the track's website :

The Lancaster Speedway was built in 1954, by a group of local businessmen, headed by the late Herman "Hump" Poovey. It was constructed on land that was owned by Mr. Poovey. It was very successful and even featured NASCAR sanctioned races in 1957, which were won by Paul Goldsmith and Speedy Thompson. From 1958 until 1963 however, the track fell upon some hard times, changing owners and management several times. In 1963, cousins Ross and Charles "Snooks" Cauthen bought the track and put it back into regular operation. By 1968 there was another change as local businessman Coble Funderburk took over operations at the speedway. During his tenure, Funderburk made several improvements to the facility including a new concrete wall on the front straightaway between the track and the grandstands. A joint point championship, with Starlite Speedway in Monroe NC, was started in 1969. Racing was good and the crowds were large but another change was soon coming. In 1975, local salvage yard owner, Jim Mahaffey took over as the owner-promoter of the speedway. One of the changes made was to drop the top division of race cars, the powerful V8 Late Model Sportsman class. This was done to cut the cost of operating the speedway on a weekly basis and many people said that it would result in the end of the speedway. Time proved just the opposite to be true and the speedway flourished under Mahaffey and an all six cylinder racing program. Jim didnt stop there though. He made many improvements to the facilities. Over the years he replaced the lighting system, replaced the wooden grandstands with concrete slabs, and started extending the concrete wall, started by Funderburk, to extend all the way around the speedway and replacing the wooden and metal fences. Most fans agree the time that Jim Mahaffey was operating the speedway was a great era for fans and drivers alike.

updated by @tmc-chase: 06/01/17 09:32:13AM

Racing History Minute - May 31, 1970

Stock Car Racing History

I think this picture in Ray Lamm's collection may be from the 1970 Virginia 500. LeeRoy was in Banjo Matthews' #27. With Isaac dominating the laps and starting alongside LeeRoy, my guess is this shot is from early in the race. (In the fall Old Dominion 500, neither Isaac and Donnie Allison back in the #27 led a lap. So its unlikely the photo is from that event.)

updated by @tmc-chase: 05/30/19 10:10:42AM

Racing History Minute - May 31, 1970

Stock Car Racing History

With Tim Leeming being away a day or so, I thought I'd keep the momentum going. Its been neat to see a race featured each day. So here goes.

This post returns us to one of NASCAR's most hallowed tracks - Martinsville. The spring Virginia 50 was traditionally run earlier in the spring - late April to early May. The same held true for 1970 as the race was scheduled for April 26. Qualifying was held, and King Richard won the pole.

Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal

But the race was rained out on April 26 and again on the first make-up date of May 3. NASCAR and Clay Earles worked to then run the race on May 31.

Between the date of qualifying on April 24 and the make-up date of May 31, King Richard had quite the exciting spring. On May 9, he caromed off the turn 4 and pit road walls at Darlington in the Rebel 400 dislocating his shoulder. As a result, he was home on the couch vs. on the track when the Virginia 500 finally began.

When the teams returned to Virginia, it seemed NO ONE would take the pole. Petty wanted to substitute Pete Hamilton for his car, but Petty Enterprises was unable to convert a speedway car to a short-tracker in time for Pete to run the race. Even if Pete had run the race, it would have been questionable if NASCAR would have allowed him to start from the King's top qualifying start (though perhaps not - read on).

Consequently, NASCAR negated Petty as the pole winner. To this day, most media sources (and even the International Motorsports Hall of Fame ) state The King won 127 pole positions in his career. The record was even commemorated on a Pepsi bottle in Petty's final season as a driver.

Yet, racing-reference.info only reflects 123 poles. I get the one exception - but now I guess I have to set about reconciling the other three.

Next was Donnie Allison who was 2nd fastest in qualifying in April. But with a top 5 finish in the Indy 500, he chose to stay in Indiana for post-race festivities vs. returning to Martinsville. According to Greg Fielden's Forty Years of Stock Car Racing - Vol. 3, Donnie was awarded the distinction of being the pole winner when Petty couldn't return. Yet all sources I've seen show Donnie with 18 career poles - a number that does NOT include the 1970 Virginia 500.

Bobby Isaac qualified 3rd in April, but he ended up starting 2nd in the race even though King and Donnie could not start 1-2. Why? Because LeeRoy Yarbrough - who also raced at Indy - showed up at Martinsville, surrendered the car he qualified 8th to David Pearson, got in Donnie Allison's car, and was allowed to start from the pole ! Talk about a real head-scratcher.

The race finally began and AGAIN rains threatened. Fortunately the race wasn't rained out a third time - but it was rain shortened to 377 laps and 188.5 miles. Isaac and his Harry Hyde-led #71 Nord Krauskopf team were on a roll. Including Martinsville, Isaac had won 4 of the previous 5 races on his way to the 1970 Grand National championship. He led 233 of the 377 laps, and he was almost a full lap ahead of second place finisher Bobby Allison.

The top 5 finishers were:

1. Bobby Issac, 377 laps, $10,795

2. Bobby Allison, 377 laps, $5,140

3. Cale Yarborough, 376 laps, $3,100

4. David Pearson, 376 laps, $1,525

5. Dick Brooks, 375 laps, $1,025

Other notable finishers in the 39-car field included Jabe Thomas (8th), Wendell Scott (12th), Ron Keselowksi (14th), Roy Mayne (20th), pole "winner" Lee Roy (26th), Friday Hassler (36th), and upstart Benny Parsons (38th).

Source: Bryan Times

updated by @tmc-chase: 11/08/17 04:41:05PM

Tim Leeming has been quiet today

Current NASCAR

Tim Leeming has been quiet today

Current NASCAR

Perhaps this will perk him up and grab his attention (or cause him to rush to the bathroom).

Taken at Sambo's seafood restaurant May 30, 2013.

Link: https://twitter.com/mw55/status/340289798382174211

updated by @tmc-chase: 12/05/16 04:04:08PM

When Dover Debuted a Concrete Surface and the Subsequent Painting of the Blue Line

Stock Car Racing History

In the 1st Dover race, the current backstretch was the frontstretch with the start/finish line just outside the windows of the casino. I believe they flipped the track so to speak after the first one. And that first one was held on ... July 6, 1969, two days and almost 1,000 miles away from the Firecracker 400 held on the 4th of July in Daytona. So while we're often frustrated with how NASCAR is managed today, the NASCAR brass of this era doesn't have the market cornered on stupid. Plenty of goober decisions were made back in the day.

Here is a link to the blog entry I posted about Richard Petty's win in that 1st Dover race.

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2012/07/july-6-this-day-in-petty-h...

And the first driver to win on Dover's concrete in 1995? Yep, another Petty connection: Kyle. His 8th and final Cup win.