April 5 - This day in Petty history

1981 - Richard Petty endures a one-hour pre-race rain delay, hangs around much of the day, adapts to a slick track, and leads the final 62 laps to win the Northwestern Bank 400 at North Wilkesboro.

Petty's victory was a repeat win following his 1980 win, his tenth Wilkesboro spring win, and his 15th time overall win at Wilkesboro. It was his 194th career victory and his final short track win.

The win was also his first victory following the departure of Dale Inman, Petty's long-time crew chief and cousin. Interestingly, Inman's former team and his new one - Osterlund Racing with Dale Earnhardt - were pitted next to one another.

Courtesy of Dennis Beck of RacersReunion.com

Rather than hire a new crew chief, the role was filled by long-time Petty Enterprises employees, Steve Hmiel and Wade Thornbug. For the last two decades, Hmiel worked as a crew chief and competition director for Dale Earnhardt, Inc.'s teams (later to become Earnhardt Ganassi Racing or Chip-N-Dale as I called it).

Prior to his stint with the DEI/EGR teams, Hmiel worked for Roush Racing in the 1990s. For many years, he was the crew chief for a driver who made his Winston Cup debut in this 1981 Wilkesboro race - Mark Martin. He qualified a respectable fifth, but he lost a rear-end and finished 27th in the 30-car field.

Credit to and courtesy of Ed Sanservino of RacersReunion.com

Kyle Petty made his second Wilkesboro start in this race. A year earlier, he had a pretty good day with an eighth place finish in the larger wheelbase Chevy Caprice. In 1981 with the shorter, 110-inch wheelbase Buick, well ... KP's day didn't go quite as well. He spun out not once - not twice - but three times a lady (apologies to Lionel Richie), crashed, and finished 22nd.

After one of his spins, Kyle drove the short distance from turn 1 to pit road from the opposite direction and stopped in his father's pit box. Note Inman in Earnhardt's pit with his arms crossed and most likely thinking "well, I thought I'd seen it all."

In the middle stages of the race, King and long-time rival Bobby Allison battled side by side, lap after lap. Richard was in his Buick Regal, and Allison raced his Ranier Racing Tuf-Lon Pontiac LeMans - the same model he raced in the Daytona 500 a month earlier.

And just like at Daytona, the 43 got the best of Allison for the win!

From 1970 through 1981, Petty had eight wins and remarkably finished no worse than second in Wilkesboro's spring race.

Article and photos courtesy of Jerry Bushmire

TMC
Edited March 31, 2015

Old school decals: Entry 4 of a mini-series

Last in the series. This entry's focus will be on a few sponsors from the 1970s-1980s era.

The last couple of Cup seasons have not yielded any high-impact rookies. For decades, one or two hot shoes would emerge from a pretty competitive class of first year drivers. In the late 1970s, First National City Travelers Checks sponsored the annual rookie of the year award. From there, Champion Spark Plugs took over the sponsorship.

Look closely at this 1980 picture of rookie Kyle Petty and you'll see the CSP decal on his car. Its right below the A-post underneath the NASCAR sticker.

I know nothing about wheels - street or racing. I've never run custom rims or any other aftermarket wheels. My vehicles have just sported whatever the manufacturer bolted on them at the plant. If it comes in "brake dust" color, I'll take it! But in the mid 70s, Norris Racing Wheels sponsored Bud Moore's #15 team with the plan to sell more wheels to someone I guess.

Norris joined Moore's team in 1976 for two seasons with Buddy Baker as a sponsor.

After his 2-year stint, Baker moved on to M.C. Anderson's team and later Harry Ranier's #28 car (that later evolved into become Yates Racing). Bobby Allison was hired to replace Baker, and the team had immediate success with Norris as the sponsor. Allison won the 1978 Daytona 500 in only the second Cup start with his new team.

Today's official NASCAR fuel is Sunoco. Prior to that, it was UNOCAL. I don't remember exactly where the transition happened, but somewhere along the way the brand name was changed from UNION 76 to UNOCAL.(Prior to UNION 76, the official fuel was Pure Oil, but I don't have a Pure decal so the story ends there.)

Hawaiian Tropic sponsored a handful of drivers in the 1970s and into 1980. They were most prominently featured on Hoss Ellington's red #1 cars - particularly the Oldsmobile of Donnie Allison when he crashed with Cale Yarborough in the 1979 Daytona 500.

David Pearson took over Hoss' #1 car in 1980 after he was let go by the Wood Brothers in 1979. The Hawaiian Tropic sponsorship continued with the Silver Fox as the driver.

Source: Ray Lamm collection

In the early 1980s after about 10 years as the title sponsor of NASCAR's premier series, R.J. Reynolds updated its Winston Cup Series logo. The below decal starting showing up on the cars in the early 1980s and stayed in use until Nextel (and later Sprint) replaced RJR as the title sponsor of the Cup series.

Today, Mark Martin is known as the "grizzled veteran" of the Cup series. He's been a part of well-funded teams for over 20 years (his stint with Ginn Racing excepted). But in the early 1980s, Martin decided to move to Cup from the ASA Series where he'd performed so well. He started his own team and secured Apache Stove as his sponsor. As it turned out, Mark's money ran out, he didn't have a lot of success, he was struggling with a pretty ferocious demon in his life, and he disappeared. He returned after a 5 year hiatus to join forces with Jack Roush.

Once again, look closely right above Mark's number - between the zero and two. You'll see the CSP rookie decal noted earlier.

Source: Jeff Droke at nashville420.com

Bill Elliott is best known for driving a Coors Ford during much of the 1980s. Before he and his family-led team hit it big, they received some sponsorship from Harry Melling's Mell-Gear company or division. Melling Tool was already the primary sponsor for Benny Parsons, but Mell-Gear helped the Elliotts. Their flirtations with success led Melling to move from sponsorship of the team to buying it outright.


Thus endeth the series. Comment away please.

TMC

Talladega Memories - 1991 Winston 500

In May 1991, we camped for the 3rd year in a row (I think it was 3) at Talladega. Saturday was fine at the speedway, but we awoke on Sunday to gloomy skies. Sure enough, not long after the Winston 500 began Mother Nature unleashed an unbelievable shower worthy of a Bering Sea storm on The Deadliest Catch. It rained so much in a short period of time that I'm pretty sure the whole speedway slid down towards the highway about a foot or so.

We made it to our car - soaked but laughing. Off we headed for home to Chattanooga. But as we sat in miserable traffic followed by a solid 2-1/2 hour ride home, we committed ourselves to phoning in sick on Monday and returning to what was then known as Alabama International Motor Speedway.

Monday was the complete opposite of Sunday. You couldn't buy a nicer spring day. As per usual, we returned to our usual spot in those days of the bank along the back stretch with lawn chairs and coolers in hand. (Race day tickets were $25. Some folks opted for the rickety, splintered, drunk-filled bleachers. But we always opted for lawn chairs and blankets.)

The racing was simply phenomenal. Tons of speed. Tons of passing. Tons of moves that took your breath away. Kyle Petty was fast. Earnhardt as usual was on the point. One of our homeboys, Nashville's own Bobby Hamilton was racy in Tri-Star Motorsports Country Time Lemonade Olds. His previous claim to fame in Cup was driving cars for the filming of Days of Thunder.

And then it happened. Swervin' Irvan sandwiched his way between Kyle Petty and Mark Martin, twitched, doinked Kyle, and all hell broke loose. Mark's ride looked the wildest as his car rose a bit before settling back down. But Kyle got the worst end of it. The wreck broke his leg and sidelined him for many, many weeks.

We were sitting about where the '500' is painted on the wall in the accompanying video - not too far from where Kyle's car came to rest.

Irvan, rightfully so, took a ton of grief for the wreck - not to mention the many other ones he caused over the years. But in times when he himself got hurt, he often recalled one of the first driver to come see in or call about his condition was...Kyle Petty.

In the end, all the great racing during the race didn't matter. Harry Gant conserved fuel & got some bump drafting, gas-conserving assistance from Rick Mast who was driving a 2nd Skoal car. He won a fuel mileage 500 over Darrell Waltrip who was none too happy about being snookered on Handsome Harry's stroking fuel cruise.



TMC

Conflicted about Mark Martin's comment

Its amazing how quickly the TV folks can drop their fave and jump aboard the bandwagon of the "hot new thang". But its also doubly amazing when the fave is Junebug Jr. as he faded late in the Phoenix race and the "hot new thang" is 50 year old, thrice-retired Mark Martin.

I don't dislike Mark. But I'm not a big fan either. Just call me ambivalent. I do believe, however, his victory was generally popular with the fans, fellow competitors, sponsors, NASCAR, and the media.

What has me conflicted a bit, however, is a comment Mark made in victory lane Saturday night. He made the comparison of his victory (his first since 2005) to Tim Richmond's comeback victory at Pocono in 1987.



I'm glad 50 year-old Martin remembers Tim and mentioned his name in victory lane. With Kyle Petty and Ken Schrader sidelined and Bill Elliott only barely around anymore, only Mark is left to remember what it was like racing in Tim's era.

Mark also knows his place at Hendrick. Even though the car is #5, the team is from the lineage of Tim's #25 team. The FOX TV guys referenced how special the #5 is to Rick Hendrick because that's the number he used from the beginning with Geoff Bodine. They've already forgotten the true 5 team (Shrub's old ride) was re-numbered to 88 when the Double Joonyurs were hired, and the 25 team was re-numbered to 5 (piloted previously by Casey Mears and now Martin). I think Mark was honestly trying to give props to Tim for setting a high mark for the 25 (then) / 5 (now) team that hasn't been matched since.



Source: Ray Lamm

I also recognize Mark's win meant a lot to him. Even when he was winning regularly in Roush's #6 Ford, he often said the victories were special because you never knew if it was his last one.

But to compare winning a race - after a four-year drought...in top physical condition...as a fan-favorite...and embraced by NASCAR - to a comeback victory by a driver...with "pneumonia like symptoms"...having AIDS as a death sentence...not being trusted by your fellow competitors...and having your character attacked by NASCAR, well I think that's a stretch for me.

In the end, I'll likely give Mark a pass. He was excited about the win, he and the team have pulled themselves off the mat to go from 35th in points to 13th, and he didn't have a lot of time in victory lane to arrange his words perfectly about Tim. The bottom line is he at least he did mention Tim's relevance, and in the end that was a pretty classy thing to do.

TMC

Greg Biffle - Preach on brutha!

From Friday's USA Today NASCAR notes...

Biffle was critical of recent comments by his former teammte, Mark Martin, regarding the quality of the cars on Martin's new team, Hendrick Motorsports. "I love Mark Martin," Biffle said. "He's a character, but if you look back historically I think every interview you see Mark in you can just hit the record button. 'Man, I'm having the time of my life. This is the best race car. This is the best group of guys. I've never seen anybody work so hard in my life.' I see it over and over. It's like a replay. It's like a bad dream. I'm just telling you what I see on TV. I see the same thing in the interview and there's nothing wrong with that. You've got to be positive, right? He's being positive and that's Mark Martin— being positive. When he went over to DEI it was the chance of a lifetime and they were the best cars in the garage. I think it's the same thing now, but I would have to say that Hendrick probably has the best stuff in the garage with Jimmie Johnson winning the championship three years in a row."

Mark's optimism, his ability to always plug his sponsor du-jour, and his loyalty-in-the-moment to his team has endeared him to his fans, media, and sponsors over the years. Up until about 4 years ago, I was ambivalent about him - didn't pull for him but also didn't pull against him. But his multi-year, prolonged retirement/resurgence, want to spend more time with my family, well...maybe another year routine has grown old to me.

Apparently others share the same opinion.

As an aside, a bud of mine made a great observation recently about Mark's sponsors from a few years ago. He went from racing for Viagra in the Cup series to being sponsored by Miracle Gro in Truck series. My friend asked "so isn't that basically the same thing?"





TMC