Forum Activity for @dave-fulton

Vintage Racing at Carolina Speedway

Vintage Oval and Road Course Racing

Between 1969-1980 or so, the Gore family big summer Late Model Sportsman shows at Old Dominion Speedway for those 200-lap "Bill Bogley Lincoln-Mercury" races drew the best field of Sportsman cars of any NASCAR event outside of Martinsville's spring & fall goes. I was fortunate to attend a couple and it was amazing to see all that driver/team talent in one place. The racing was fierce. A partial list of winners of those races includes Sonny Hutchins, Ray Hendrick, Lennie Pond, Bob Pressley, Butch Lindley and Morgan Shepherd. They were truly "all star" races.

Jeff Gilder said:

Your recognition of the Gore family is spot on. That family has played a huge role in the advancement of motor racing in general.

Vintage Racing at Carolina Speedway

Vintage Oval and Road Course Racing

Jeff, Sounds like you folks had a wonderful time.

Regarding your Point Number 9 - too many divisions:

This has been my pet peeve with local tracks for years. Too many divisions equals too few cars per division and all night shows. I still maintain that any track running more than three classes is shooting themself in the foot. I actually think two very well promoted classes would be even better.

Right after the NASCAR Modifieds were dropped at all the Virginia tracks, the best local shows I ever saw were at Richmond's Southside Speedway in late 60s/early 70s. That'swhenmaster car builder, modified and Cup winner and later owner of Stock Car Products Emanuel Zervakis (the Golden Greek) promoted the place on Friday nights. Running 3 divisions, NASCAR Late Model Sportsman, NASCAR Limited Sportsman and a Hobby Class, the racing action began promptly at 8:30 pm and was over at 10:30 pm. It was two solid hours of non-stop racing for $5. You could set your watch by it. Out at 10:30 every Friday night and the best late model drivers in the country. None of this all night time trial crap, either. It was all pure racing with no breaks in the on-track action. Two ten lap heats for each division and the feature race. No prolonged cautions or red flags. Get 'em off the track and keep racing. All three divisions had huge car counts, 25-30 NASCAR Late Model Sportsman cars with guys from western VA like Jimmy Hensley and Paul Radford and the Carolinas like Harry Gant and Morgan Shepherd (even DW from Tennessee)all coming in to run with our local Ray Hendrick, Sonny Hutchins, Al Grinnan, Tommy Ellis, Lennie Pondand crowd. And guess what - the grandstands were full every Friday night. When NASCAR killed the Late Model Sportsman division and created the Touring Series,the attendance rapidly declined, though. Thank goodness for the Gore family at Old Dominion Speedway in Mannassas, VA introducing the Late Model Stock Car class and convincing NASCAR to adopt it, though that hardly matches the old 60s style NASCAR fuel injected Modified action or later Late Model Sportsman action I grew up with. In the last two years I have attended a few weekly races at the dirt Lancaster, SC speedway and the paved Concord, NC track - both beautiful facilities that are fan friendly and a nice place to take kids. My grandsons went with me. HOWEVER - the races lasted all night and there were so many divisions at both tracks you needed a Philadelphia lawyer to figure it out. After having attended races for 47 years, I was completely lost at these two places trying to figure out what was going on. Some of the races only had 5 cars. It was ridiculous. My grandsons spent more time playing with matchbox cars and going to the concession stand than watching 5 cars spread out around a race track. That's not racing. Please, promoters and racers, kill all these extraneous divisions and put on a great 2-3 hour show where the fan is kept occupied with big fields in just three or so divisions. We're just letting racing get killed so many ways. It's not just at the Cup level.

is this one for real or not???

Stock Car Racing History

Lordy, wouldn't touch the authenticity debate with a 10 foot pole, but in 1986 Lee Holmanlet us (Morris International - ad agency for P&G Tide & Crisco programs)use the Holman-Moody building to paint the original Tide Machine show car, trailer andsupport vehiclefor the November 1986 press conference in Atlanta to announce the Hendrick/DW/Waddell Wilson/Tide "Dream Team". Unfortunately Lee was also storing a huge number of arcade video games in the building for a vendor. They all wound up with Day-Glo orange overspray on them. There were quite a few ugly words spoken over the situation by all involved parties and money sought for the damaged games. The Hendrick/Waltrip show car we had hastily assembled for the press conference was a real pile of junk we'd secured in the Atlanta area. But it managed to impress the assembled press corps when DW drove it through a giant Tide box at the College Park, GA Ramada Renaissance Hotel. I'd sure hate to have to vouch for the authenticity of that junk pile.

Better yet, in 1982, master fabricator Robert Gee (Guvnor) turned our former 1981 Wrangler Jeans Osterlund-built Pontiac into a 1982 Ford #15 Bud Moore lookalike. Only problem was we could not afford another engine for the car and it toured for a year with a GM engine. I'll never forget the late Hank Schoolfield answering a fan letter in his Southern MotoRacing newspaper questioning the position of the distributor on that 1982 Ford Dale Earnhardt show car he had seen on display. Schoolfield eloquently answered that race engine mechanics often altered the original location of the distributor. We about died over that one. But those fans that had their picture taken with and sat in that car were still thrilled and Dale Earnhardt HAD driven it, just as a different make. I guess to those thousands of Earnhardt fans in 1982, it probably wouldn't have mattered a lot. In 1983, Bud Moore did build a new 1983 T-bird for our show car.

How Did Racers Survive Outside the South?

General

We've probably all had some food firsts at the track - I remember these:

MY 1st burritto - Infield food stand at Riverside, Ca

My 1st curly fries - Kent, WA road course for Winston West race

My 1st pierogi - Pocono behind pit road

My 1st clam bellies - Sawyer's dairy bar somewhere near where I stayed on Lake Winnipesaukee forNew Hampshire races

At Michigan for the 2nd race some local farmers used to roast fresh corn in the garage and serve it to us with hot butter. And, of course, those great crabs around Dover. I guess we ate pretty good.

How Did Racers Survive Outside the South?

General

Oh, yes, PattyKay... ya got me salivating now. We've discussed before that great food at Pocono. Strange you should mention Batavia, NY. In the summer of 1960, my family - six of us in our non-air conditioned 1957 Chevy - stopped in Batavia, NYfor breakfast at a truckstop on our way from Gettysburg, PA to Niagara Falls, our trip having originated in Richmond. I have no idea of the name of that long ago (white wooden building, I believe) truckstop, but I remember our family always voted it the number 1, best road breakfast we ever ate. Thinking of upper NY state, I also must mention the Gang Mills Diner, in Gang Mills, NY, outside of Painted Post/Corning where we'd eat breakfast for the Watkins Glen races. Outstanding. One other thing that was tops in New York, the Wegmans supermarket chain. When I stayed in Corning, my wife would laugh at me because I wanted to go browse around Wegmans. I still think it was the neatest grocery store I've been in. They would even deliver pizza from the supermarket to the motel. I may have been born in the Capital of the Confederacy, but I do have an appreciation for the road food I've encountered in New York.

How Did Racers Survive Outside the South?

General

We all know that there have been real "hotbeds" of stock car racing all across the United States, especially since WWII. North, South, East, West, New England, Mid-Atlantic, Deep South, Midwest, Southwest, Pacific Coast, Northwest all have provided terrific racing action and legions of fans on the local level. HOWEVER, the question has occurred to me of exactly how the racers and fans outside the south survived for so many years. This thought occurred to me today right after I had sliced a couple of thick slabs of corned beef and slathered a couple of slices of bread with DUKE'S Mayonnaise from the giant sized jar that is never too far back in my refrigerator. Duke's Mayonnaise originated in Greenville, SC and was manufactured there and at the company headquarters of C.F. Sauer, Inc. on Broad Street in Richmond, Virginia - my hometown. For many years Duke's had fairly limited distribution, primarily in the south.

Heck, when I went to Dallas to work for 7-Eleven my family would UPS Duke's Mayonnaise and Mrs. Fearnow's Brunswick Stew to me from Richmond.

My point here is... how in the world did all those racers and fans from other sections of the country survive without Duke's mayonnaise to spread on those bologna sandwiches they made at or took to the track?

I mean, we all know there is a tv commercial running where the Earnhardt family expresses their allegiance to Hellman's mayonnaise, but I gotta tell you... I don't ever remember seeing any mayo around the NASCAR garages I was in except jars of Duke's. No Hellman's, no Kraft, no Best Foods. Just homegrown, southern Duke's mayo. Some loaves of freshbread, some bologna, some Duke's Mayonnaise and cans of Vienna Sausages and we were pretty well set for eating at the track. Now at Darlington we'd sneak out to the Raceway Grille for hamburger steaks and sometimes you'd see some KFC show up, then Junie Donlavey started cooking Red Baron Pizzas in his rig. And, the food in the infield cafeteria at Rockingham couldn't be beat. But none of this gourmet stuff you see now on tv with all the teams having personal chefs.

Now the food variety was different track to track, but always good. At Wilson Country Speedway we stopped by Parkers BBQ before going in the track. At Southside Speedway we ate corn dogs called "Pronto Pups." South Boston had bologna burgers, if you could get Elliot Sadler out of the way and scrumptious fried chicken. Martinsville had their Jesse Jones hot dogs (made in Garner, NC). Heck, when we started going to New Hampshire we even stopped for clam bellies!

But back to sandwich making. - my question again is simple - how in the world did you folks outside the south ever make it at the track without Duke's mayonnaise? I know ya had to eat sumpin!

(and I would have my tongue planted firmly in my cheek if it wasn't busy licking the mayo off my lips!)

updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

Utsman Brothers

Local and Regional Short Track Racing

Not one of the photos you are looking for, but an interesting 2007 picture, nonetheless:

The racing Utsman family, from left: Larry, John A., Sherman and Layman each competed at Bristol Motor Speedway during pivotal moments in the tracks history. Photo by Ned Jilton II.

Mobilgas Economy Run

General

Thompson website identified Mickey Thompson's car as 1963 Pontiac Star Chief and the beauty queen as Miss Thunderbird Casino. Mickey's wife, Judydrove a Pontiac Tempest that year.

Dennis Garrett said:

Above photo:
year?
Driver name? race driver Mickey Thompson
Beauty Queen Model name?
car model and year?

Mobilgas Economy Run

General

It wasn't stock car racing, but do you remember the Mobilgas Economy Run each year? It supposedly was run with "stock" autos bought at various dealers around the country, but the auto companies eventually figured how to plant the cars they wanted. Back in the day it was a big deal and featured in all the automotive magazines as well as the national press. When I was around the track there was a married couple who worked for Simpson Safety Equipment, but also worked for NASCAR checking the contingency sponsor decals on all cars. I remember that both Bill & Nikki had driven in the Mobilgas Economy Runs and it was interesting to hear their stories. If it could ever be policed properly (which it probably couldn't) seems like this would be a great time to have those economy runs again, what with gas prices approaching coffee prices these days.

updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

WASCAR Headlines

Stock Car Racing History

Shucks, that cage deal might work right now. I remember Humpy and his boxing bouts at the Charlotte Start/Finish line. Set up the cage on the start / finish line and throw in Happy, Rowdy, Juan Pablum, Ryan, etc. We could probably scout around Charlotte and find Rip "The Chicken" Hawk to referee. Now if we could figure how to combine tag team and cage match.... Not sure about opening that closet door, though.