The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
And just for old time's sake, here's a photo of Plymouth's last NASCAR win on August 12, 1973 at Talladega with Dick Brooks at the wheel. Courtesy of Legends of NASCAR website.
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General
And just for old time's sake, here's a photo of Plymouth's last NASCAR win on August 12, 1973 at Talladega with Dick Brooks at the wheel. Courtesy of Legends of NASCAR website.
The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
Having been raised a bowtie and goat kinda guy, I must say that a few of the greatest years of my life came in the company of Bud Moore and the Wood family, diehard Dearborn folks. And they didn't come any nicer in the garage than Ford man Junie Donlavey. One of my great regrets is that I never saw Curtis and Little Joe side by side on the dirt driving those Ford "Purple Hogs".
The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
Saw this little 2009 clip while looking for Richard Petty Boots photos... still rings pretty true
They should still be shining The Kings boots
By Ron Kantowski
Published Monday, June 22, 2009 | 12:04 p.m.
I was walking around the Neon Garage at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on the last day of February when the Harrah's car, which the legendary Richard Petty supposedly co-owns, pulled in for service. King Richard thought he'd have a look under the hood.
He was peering at the engine the way I do when my car quits running on the Interstate. You know, hoping against hope that whatever was making the Harrah's car run slow would just jump right up and fix itself.
Then a crewman came over and lightly nudged him out of the way.
How sad, I thought. A generation ago, crewmen didn't nudge the great Richard Petty out of the way. They offered to shine his cowboy boots.
On Sunday, when another car supposedly co-owned by Petty won the race at the old track at Sears Point in California and they brought Richard up there to the podium, he was brutally honest about the role he played in the victory.
"All they want me to do is bring in money so they can go racing, OK?" he said.
I thought that was kinda sad, too.
The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
And do you remember how we used to needle each other by saying:
Fix Or Repair Daily
Fred Outruns Richard Daily
Found On the Racetrack Dead ???
The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
We can have a million discussions and this will still never look "right" !!!
The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
We were sure dumbstruck in 1969 when Richard went FoMoCo. Didn't take long for Chrysler to woo him back, either. I seem to remember big discussions back then of Petty Enterprises not being able to adjust to coil springs. At any rate, that electric blue 1969 Ford seemed totally out of place. Today's fans who weren't following racing in 1969 can't imagine the shockwaves of that change after all the success of "Plymouth by Petty." It was like Robert E. Lee going over to the Yankees or Ronald Reagan running for President as a Democrat. It was a BIG, BIG deal back then. It would have been like Dale Earnhardt, Sr.leaving NASCAR for Indy Cars or Richard not going in the inaugural Hall of Fame class. It was HUGE.
The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
Seriously, I remember my first trip to Bristol from Richmond in 1966 for the Southeastern 500 on a cold, gray Sunday afternoon. This was back in the original "low-banked" asphalt Bristol configuration. After we group of 17 year olds had been thoroughly embarassed by having the bottom fall out of our styrofoam cooler while laboriously climbing the hill from the parking lot to the top of the grandstands, we finally arrived at our seats. Incidently this race was won by Dick Hutcherson with Jeff Gilder's friend Paul Lewis second. But what stands out in my mind to this day was not the winner or who crashed, but the fan reaction when Fred Lorenzen's factory Ford began showing little puffs of smoke. You could hear at least half the crowd over the noise of the cars cheering louder and louder as the smoke from the #28's exhaust pipes got thicker and thicker until the crowd roared as one when that pristine white Ford pulled onto pit road and the crowd noise overshadowed the noise from the cars. Did the fans hate "Golden Boy?" Nope. They hated Fords, especially factory Holman-Moody Fords driven by Ford's brightest star. To this day I have never heard a crowd cheer so loud when a car exited a race and I've been to a few.
The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
Keep having this dream that they're gonna put on a NASCAR points race with a huge purse on a big dirt track using hemis, 427s, porcupines, bias ply tires, windshield wipers, dirt screens, etc. and Cotton Owens is fielding a car for David Pearson and the fans are welcome in the pits to meet the drivers after the race.....
The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?
General
We used to secretly gloat over the words in the old NASCAR rule books in the "engine" section regarding legal engines that said, "Except for the 1963 Chevrolet 427 Cubic Inch Engine."
And when Richard Howard brought Chevy back we remember what happened to the crowds. They came back.