Ready to race with Lee Petty "sparking" the field. Never heard that one before I don't think.
Source: The Robesonian of Lumberton NC
Race recap. The article refers to a Holiday GN race. Easter fell late in 1960 - occurring on April 17. The race was one of the rare ones in history run on a Monday.
Source: Spartanburg Herald-Journal
Today is another anniversary of the April 17, 1977 Southeastern 500 race at Bristol. I'll revive Tim Leeming's post from a year ago with a few more photos.
Pre-race starting line-up
Cale in victory lane with MIss Winston Patty Huffman (partially obscured by the Getty watermark)
Shoeless Cale celebrating the win with Miss Sun-Drop
Race report from Spartanburg Herald
The race featured a couple of good story lines that would likely have had folks all abuzz if Twitter were around back then.
One, David Pearson was scheduled to make his first return to Bristol since 1971 to relief drive for Benny Parsons. The two of them managed to get BP a 5th place finish - pretty remarkable considering Cale ran off and hid from everyone and the drivers made the seat swap on a short track.
Source: Kingsport Daily News
Two, Janet Guthrie made her first start at Bristol. She qualified a respectable (though disappointing to her) 21st, and she finished 11th.
Source: Wilmington Morning Star
You'll find Bobby's - whew - singing? of Watch Out For The Matador as track 9 on the playlist of songs posted on my page.
Ed Sanseverino has this T. Taylor Warren picture [ in his collection ] & tagged as 1961. Rex won both Wilkesboro races in 1961, and I'm unsure which race Ed's pic is from. Perhaps Ed or others can help determine if this photo is from April's GS400 race.
Staley's convertible Chevy was owned by Julian Petty. With the loss of Bobby Myers at Darlington in Lee Petty's Olds about 6 months earlier, my hunch is the two Petty brothers didn't want to do a lot of talking about the dark side of racing.
Wednesday, April 16 is another anniversary of Rex White's win at North Wilkesboro in 1961. Thought I'd bring back Tim Leeming's post from a year ago by adding a photo I found this evening on Getty Images. Rex White and crew chief Louis Clements in 'victory lane'.
A couple of reports from the print journalists. Apparently they didn't use Twitter back in the day.
From the Sumter Daily Item :
And from the Spartanburg Herald-Journal :
