Is That Bud Moore / Earnhardt Car a Ford or a Pontiac? Are You Sure?
Stock Car Racing History
Our RR upcoming events calendar lists an event on Sunday, October 14 that is titled MEMORY LANE MUSEUM HONORS BUD MOORE .
The event description is found at this link below - just click.
http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/events/memory-lane-museum-honors-bud-moore
I sure plan to ride up to Mooresville, NC and see my old friend Bud get honored. The event copy also says that the 1982 Bud Moore Wrangler Thunderbird that Dale Earnhardt drove to victory over Cale Yarborough in the 1982 CRC Chemicals Rebel 500 at Darlington is also displayed in the museum and a picture is included on the museum web site.
When I read that statement, I broke out laughing. As the Manager of Wrangler NASCAR Special Events, I was in the Bud Moore pits that day and in victory lane with Dale and Bud at Darlington. I don't know anything about the 1982 Wrangler T-bird in the museum, but I do know that not all 1982 Bud Moore / Wrangler / Dale Earnhardt Thunderbirds are what they appear to be.
Let me explain :
The 1981 NASCAR Winston Cup season began with Dale Earnhardt driving a 1981 Rod Osterlund #2 Pontiac sponsored by Wrangler. Osterlund had a former Pontiac speedway car Wrangler bought to use for a show car. In fact, I drove that show car in the 1981 Daytona 500 pre-race parade and it overheated. Osterlund Racing Manager, Roland Wlodyka took the car back to the Old Statesville Road shop in Charlotte and put a different fan in it to keep it from overheating at slow parade lap speeds.
As has been well documented, Osterlund sold the Dale Earnhardt team to JD Stacy in summer of 1981 and Wrangler brokered a deal with Richard Childress to field Pontiacs for Dale in the final 11 races of 1981. A lot of folks forget that Childress ever fielded a Pontiac, but Wrangler had a deal with Pontiac for 1981. I paid the salary for the late Robert Gee to go to Richard Childress' little shop and skin some sleek #3 Wrangler Pontiacs.
At the same time, we had to re-decal the Osterlund / Wrangler Pontiac show car #2 to a Childress / Wrangler Pontiac show car #3. That wasn't a big problem, except for my show car budget over run.
When Wrangler signed with Bud Moore to field Ford Thunderbirds for Dale in 1982, I had no money in my budget to build a Ford Thunderbird show car. So, I did the next best thing.
I paid the ever reliable former father-in-law of Dale Earnhardt, Robert Gee to hang 1982 Ford Thunderbird sheet metal on our 1981 Pontiac race car, keeping the Pontiac race engine in the vehicle.
For three-quarters of the 1982 racing season, I thought I'd gotten by without anyone discovering what I'd done. Then a letter to the editor from a fan appeared in the Southern MotoRacing paper of the late Hank Schoolfield. The letter asked why the engine they'd seen in the 1982 Wrangler T-bird on display in August at a department store in Bristol had the distributor on the wrong side of the engine?
I have to hand it to Hank Schoolfield. He really bailed me out. If you never knew Hank, let me explain that modesty was not one of his virtues. Ole bald headed Hank had been sports editor of the Winston-Salem Journal and was the public relations guru for both North Wilkesboro and Bowman-Gray Stadium. In addition to those duties, Hank founded and owned Universal Racing Network, broadcasting events prior to ISC owned MRN. Hank never met a subject on which he did not consider himself to be an expert. Such was the case with Hank's response letter to the fan who obviously knew the difference between a Pontiac racing engine and a Ford racing engine.
In an amazing display of pomposity that only Hank Schoolfield could have summoned, he explained in print to the race fan that the NASCAR Winston Cup racing mechanics often took liberties with race engines and made modifications so they would fit in the space allotted. This, he explained, was why the distributor appeared to be on the wrong side. It was a special modification made for racing.
Well, we laughed our butts off - me - Bud - Dale - everybody who knew anything about the history of our Wrangler show car. The fact that I was spending goodly sums of advertising dollars with Hank in his paper and on his radio broadcasts may have accounted for his answer. I was too sheepish to ever ask.
For the life of me, I can't remember what we did with that car when we built a new style Wrangler T-bird show car for 1983. However, when I get to Mooresville on Sunday, October 14, I think I'll ask Bud and Greg Moore to take a look under the hood and tell me if they see a Ford or Pontiac engine, lol!!!
Shown in the Dozier Mobley photo below is the very car I have been telling you about, on display at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway on September 12, 1982 at the Wrangler SanforSet 400. There is a 1981 Bob Burham built Osterlund Pontiac racing engine under the hood of that 1982 Bud Moore Ford Thunderbird.
The fellow on the left is my late father and the man on the right is "Mr. Wrangler" from the television commercials. He was a Hollywood actor named Ray who also did Buick commercials in a suit sans the mustache. Those are the facts, mam.
The two cars below are the same car as above, except with the Pontiac skin. First is #2 1981 Osterlund livery and second is #3 1981 Childress livery. #2 Photo by Dozier Mobley, #3 photo by Bryant McMurray:
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
