Wednesday, November 2, 2011

November 2 - This day in Petty history

Greetings from Newark, NJ. To my knowledge, Newark has never hosted a NASCAR event - at least not a Cup race. However, an old NASCAR track - Trenton Speedway - was located about one hour from Newark. And Newark will supposedly be the site of a 2013 Formula 1 race with the New York City skyline as the backdrop. So race on and Schaefer up! Now on to today's Petty history anniversary post...

1975 - Richard Petty wins the Volunteer 500 at Bristol. The win was his 177th career victory, the 13th and final win of the 1975 season, and the icing on the cake for the year as The King earned his sixth NASCAR Grand National / Winston Cup championship.

For many years, Bristol's second event of the year was scheduled for July - a brutally hot time in Tennessee. Track owner and promoter Larry Carrier requested another date from NASCAR to ease the heat effects on his fans, and the 1975 race was scheduled for November. I'm guessing this may have been a message from Bill France Jr. to Carrier. In 1976, the race was moved back to August where it now remains.

Article courtesy of Jerry Bushmire
TMC

No comments:

Post a Comment