NASCAR's Grand National drivers arrived in Hickory, North Carolina in the spring of 1966 for the Hickory 250, the first of two races at the 4/10-mile dirt track that season.
Through the early part of the schedule, David Pearson led the points despite not having won in the first eight races of the schedule. The big...err, mild storylines for Hickory, however, surrounded two surprise entrants.
A few days before the race, Petty Enterprises filed an entry for Richard Petty and the blue #43 Plymouth. Having missed a couple of races for hand surgery following his second Daytona 500 win in February, the Pettys thought about focusing mainly on the larger purse races and skipping many of the short tracks. Instead, the Level Cross bunch opted to race at Hickory - and all but a handful of races the remainder of the season.
The other entrant who turned some heads was Curtis Turner. Ford planned to introduce the Fairlane as a comparative car to their standard-bearer Galaxie. The Fairlane was to have debuted with Turner at Asheville-Weaverville before Hickory; however, snow postponed the race until June. The next planned outing was to have been at Bristol in March, but NASCAR DQ'd the car because its wheelbase was too wide. The third attempt at Hickory turned out to be the charm. Holman Moody built the #41 white and red-lettered Fairlane though history seems to note Turner's car was fielded by the Wood Brothers on race day.
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| Source: Asheville Citizen-Times |
Independent Elmo Langley won the pole - the only one of his career. Many recall Langley's post-driving career as NASCAR's pace car driver for the Cup series in the 1990s. Pops plopped his Fairlane on the front row alongside Langley. Ned Jarrett's Ford and Pearson's Dodge made up the second row.
Turner got the jump on Elmo at the start and led the first three laps before Langley rallied back to lead a single one. Jarrett's slate blue Ford then took over as the lap bully by leading the next 138 consecutive laps. Unfortunately for Jarrett, he led them in the mid stages of the race before spinning off the nose of Turner's Fairlane late in the race as Ned tried to throw a block-pass. He had to settle for a third place finish.
As Jarrett's lap-leading streak ended, Pearson took over the top spot in Cotton Owens' Dodge. He led nearly two dozen laps before Petty took his Plymouth to the point for a few laps. The King - who was uncertain about even entering the race - may have second guessed himself for doing so. In addition to not holding the lead, Petty looped his car a couple of times and had to settle for a 10th place finish, 14 laps down to the winner.
As tough a day as Petty experienced, Buddy Baker had an even tougher Oh yeah? Hold my beer day. He survived to see the checkered flag but was FORTY-EIGHT laps down to the winner after three spins. At most short track local shows these days, a driver spinning three times to bring out a caution usually gets parked by track officials.
As the race entered its final 80 laps, Turner shoved his Fairlane back to the lead. The Blue Oval camp had to be loving life as the wily veteran slid his brand new Ford through the clay corners.
With fifty to go, however, Pearson decided it was go time. He dispatched of Turner and set sail. He pretty easily held off Curtis to notch his 14th career win, and Mopar fans cheered as the Ford contingent left scratching their dirty noggins about what might have been.
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| Source: Spartanburg Herald |
TMC
Great color footage. That's the dirt track kinda racing I was attending in 1966. I do think Hickory Speedway was stretching it in their ad with the boast "Where the hair raising power slide was born."
ReplyDeleteI could spend all my time watching those films of racing from that era. Thanks for digging that one up. Sorry I never saw Hickory as dirt, must have been a great place to watch racing.
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