I laughed at Bud Lindemann's opening describing the "packed" grandstands due to the show put on by the Rebels the previous year. Then the camera showed the start and the "crowd" in the stands, which looked about like the half empty/full stands today at California Speedway.
Some of Bud Lindemann's packaged Car & Track Productions film of the March 5, 1972 Miller High Life 500 at Ontario in a pretty poor quality taping from SpeedVision:
The very last NASCAR race ever run at Ontario - November 1980 - was the very first for our Wrangler sponsorship to appear on a Dale Earnhardt car and it was the race he clinched the 1980 Winston Cup Championship.
I was not at that race, however. As the new Manager of Wrangler NASCAR Special Events, I hadn't moved yet to corporate headquarters in Greensboro to assume that position, but was still in Wilson in eastern North Carolina training my replacement as Division Personnel Manager.
When I first started flying out to Riverside in 1981 from Greensboro, I could get a better deal flying Delta to Atlanta and then on to the Ontario, California airport than I could flying into LAX in Los Angeles.
Leaving the Ontario airport in the rental car to drive to Riverside, you'd pass right by the big frontstretch portion of the Ontario grandstands, already a ghost. Now Riverside is also gone. I've never been to Fontana, but have no desire to, either.
Ontario main grandstand photo by RR member, Scott Baker - BakerRacingPix
Postcard - posted at charliesangels.org
Pretty sure I've seen Jeff Gordon after eating some high dollar pork tenderloin cooked by the traveling Hendrick Motorsports chef on a thousand dollar grill chase it with a Pepsi!
By the way, Perry, any misidentification of the racetrack locale in the photo posted by TMC-Chase can be blamed on the wonderful folks at ISC Images and Archives (big surprise, huh?) who supplied the cutline below to Getty Images with the photo:
Unlike Wendell, after his four 1961 GN starts, Chargin' Charlie Glotzbach didn't return to NASCAR Grand National racing for seven years when he made nine 1967 starts for Harry Hyde and Nord Krauskopf in a K&K Dodge.
The History Minutes are a terrific educational tool. We are fortunate for your foresight in sharing these moments with us.
For the record, only 15 cars showed up the next day (Sunday) for the 200-lap asphalt race on Asheville-Weaverville's half-mile. Rex White routed the field, leading all 200 laps. Cotton finished 2nd in that race.
I didn't realize that "Chargin' Charlie" Glotzbach (15th- carburetor fire) had competed in Grand National events as early as 1961, but a record check shows two 1960 starts and four 1961 starts for Charlie before he returned to the GN circuit in 1967.
Tim notes the very small field of cars entered. Spartanburg sports editor, Jim Foste r notes a number of big-name drivers were on hand, but not entered, including Joe Weatherly , Buck Baker , Banjo Matthews , Buddy Baker and Larry Frank .
Foster always gave good coverage to the racers in the Spartanburg paper. He'd later head up Public Relations for Dodge Motorsports before going to work for Bill France, Sr. and becoming Vice President, Marketing and Communications for both NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation, as well as President of Daytona Speedway.
Foster would later found the Southern Motorsports Press Association (today's National Motorsports Press Association) and hold its first convention at Spartanburg race promoter, Joe Littlejohn's Pine Street Motel in Spartanburg. That's the same motel where Bud Moore quartered Ricky Rudd and me when we flew to Spartanburg in 1983 to negotiate for Ricky to replace Dale Earnhardt in the vacated Bud Moore Thunderbird for 1984.
When I moved to Spartanburg in 1986, I lived for several months with my family at Bud Moore's lake house on Lake Bowen outside of Spartanburg. Jim Foster would come back to Spartanburg from his high ranking duties in Daytona every year for a week or two's respite at Bud's lake house.
Here's Jim Foster's coverage in Sunday's Spartanburg paper:
