Francisco Eduardo Menendez - more often known as Frank "Rebel" Mundy.
Would have also liked to see Red Byron.
Forum Activity for @dave-fulton
Remember When Every Driver Wanted One?
Stock Car Racing History
Cool stuff, Dennis. I always remember those "Falstaff - The Winner" billboards coming off turn 4 at both Darlington and Rckingham.
Remember When Every Driver Wanted One?
Stock Car Racing History
Does TMC-Chase know about the gold & red Schaefer beer jackets?
Remember When Every Driver Wanted One?
Stock Car Racing History
Did your local, weekly track give the winning driver a jacket? These were often presented by some manufacturer for a big race win at the local track.
I remember when it seemed that everybody who was cool around the track wore either:
1) a Wynn's Friction Proofing Jacket (and the winner got a little decal)
2) a Bardahl jacket
3) a Bell Helmets jacket
Dale Earnhardt had gotten one of those Bell jackets for winning a race at either Concord or Metrolina and it was all he wanted to wear in cool weather. After going a round with Dale one day when he came out of the truck wearing the Bell jacket instead a Wrangler jacket, he finally told me he hated our Wrangler jacket because it had elastic sleeves that pinched and his Bell jacket had knit "baseball" sleeves.
By the next week we had made Wrangler jackets with knit "baseball" sleeves like the one Dale is wearing below:
Every now and again Dale would still appear in the red Bell helmets jacket. I don't know if he did it to irritate me or because it reminded him of an important short track win at a local track where he became a "name."
I guess in this time of everybody having sponsors, a Wynn's or Bardahl jacket seems pretty tame, but it used to be a really, really big deal to get one. Those guys wearing the Wynn's and Bardahl jackets seemed pretty special.
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
Cup schedule changes...Darlington Labor Day?
Current NASCAR
"If" true, this should be the death knell for Atlanta. While I love the idea of Labor Day weekend in Darlington, even when we raced mid-March at Atlanta it was an iffy proposition weather-wise. One race a year on March 1 must be a preliminary to Bruton moving that one remaining Atlanta date.
I'll never forget being stranded in an Atlanta hotel with food running out during the snowstorm that postponed the March 14, 1993 Atlanta race.
Holland International Speedway - August 19, 1969
Stock Car Racing History
Here's a 1997 story in the Newport News Daily Press by nationally recognized racing writer, Al Pearce about Randy Hutchison and how NASCAR later recognized that his win at Holland, New York was by the youngest driver in NASCAR Touring Series history.
For Newport News Native, Life In Fast Lane Just Out Of Reach
Looking Back
NEWPORT NEWS Randy Hutchison recalls with startling clarity the times he almost got over the hump and made it in NASCAR racing.
There was the Grand American race he was about to win in Michigan until the harmonic balancer broke. There was the cinch top-five finish at Talladega until a rookie crewman let him run out of gas, and the night he would have been top-three at South Boston if a relief driver hadn't spun in the final laps.
Then there was the Grand American race at Daytona that would have led to bigger and better things - if the engine hadn't blown. And the night he became too hot to finish a race in Macon, Ga., and the race when...
``I was so close to getting there so many times,'' said Hutchison, a former wrestling and football star at Warwick High School who owns and operates the Brake King on Jefferson Avenue in Newport News. ``Things never seemed to fall quite right at just the right times. Man, I was right there so many times.''
Hutchison began go-kart racing as a kid, then moved into Modifieds in the 10th grade. ``But even before that, I'd practice at Langley and run a heat, then my father would get somebody else for the feature,'' he said. ``When he felt I was ready, I ran the features.
``He'd taken a '63 Corvette frame, put an engine almost in the front seat, put my seat where the trunk would have been, and put the steering wheel in the middle. It was so far ahead of its time that NASCAR sent us a letter saying we couldn't race it unless we changed some stuff.''
Hutchison spent almost six years in NASCAR's Grand American and Grand National East divisions. All the while, he was going through Hargrave Military Academy, Lees-McRae Junior College and Appalachian State University.
After a Grand American victory in Holland, N.Y., in July 1969, NASCAR realized he was the youngest major-division feature winner in its history . Later that year, he ran fourth in the Paul Revere 250 night race in Daytona Beach, Fla.
He made a handful of Winston Cup starts in the mid- to late-'70s, then turned to Late Model Sportsman racing at tracks across the Carolinas and Virginia. He retired six years ago after several Late Model Stock Car seasons at Langley with crew chief Skipper Jutras.
Holland International Speedway - August 19, 1969
Stock Car Racing History
At the link above there's a short video on the page with Randy's son, "Bubba" who now runs the Hutchison family business. In the video is a still b&w photo of an old NASCAR modified the family once ran at Langley Field Speedway in Hampton, Va.
Holland International Speedway - August 19, 1969
Stock Car Racing History
Randy Hutchison of Newport News, Virginia, also a NASCAR Late Model Sportsman competitor around Virginia, was a 20 year old student in Boone, NC at Appalachian State University where he was a wrestling team member at the time of this Holland GT win in 1969. Randy turns 66 this coming Monday, August 25, 2014.
Here's where Randy has been hanging his hat for the past several decades in Newport News:
