July 24 - This day in Petty history - part 1

1970 - After winning the pole position, Richard Petty leads 172 of 200 laps and battles Bobby Isaac down the stretch to win the East Tennessee 200 at Smoky Mountain Raceway in Maryville, TN for his 110th career NASCAR Grand National win.

I spotted the King's pole-winning trophy during my visit to the Richard Petty Museum in 2011. The trophy plates aren't stamped with 1970; however, Petty only won the pole in one of his ten career starts at the track.

The race was originally scheduled for Thursday, July 23rd. East Tennessee summer rains disrupted the track's plans; however, and the race was postponed until Friday. Though the teams found themselves with a newfound day off, they had to hustle after the race to Nashville for a Saturday night 420-lap event.

Source: Hendersonville NC Times-News via Google News Archive

Article and photo of Petty/Naman courtesy of Jerry Bushmire

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July 23 - This day in Petty history

1967 - Richard Petty wins the pole, leads 225 of 500 laps, and scores the race win in the Volunteer 500 at Bristol International Raceway in Tennessee.

The King's win was his first of only three career victories at Bristol - and his 64th career NASCAR Grand National win. (His second and third Bristol victories were in March 1975 and November 1975).

Source: Motor Racing Programme Covers

Photo courtesy of Ray Lamm

According to Greg Fielden's book, Forty Years of Stock Car Racing: Volume 3, Petty's victory wasn't as easy as it may have appeared:

... Petty overcame a series of misfortunes, but staged a miraculous comeback and won the Volunteer 500... On lap 56, Petty's Plymouth came down pit road with a cut tire. The Petty crew changed all four tires and sent their driver back on the track - two laps behind.

...[After David Pearson and Dick Hutcherson led but then had problems] Petty, lapping the half-mile paved track at an alarming rate, forged back into the lead... Petty led for just two laps when he came into the pits for routine service. During the pit stop, his crew left the gas cap dangling by the chain. Petty was held at the end of pit road. By the time Petty's crew had trotted down pit road to secure the cap, he had lost another lap.

It was just another minor hindrance to Petty - who had scampered back into the lead lap by the 256th circuit. By that time, only Hutcherson was left in the lead lap and Petty had little trouble disposing his Ford rival.

"I think we've got an edge on some of the other teams," said Maurice Petty. "But we haven't got any real secret. The difference is between the seat and the steering wheel. We have the best driver." ~ pp. 143-144

Petty's win was featured in the January 1968 issue of Stock Car Racing magazine.

Articles courtesy of Jerry Bushmire

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July 21 - This day in Petty history

1963 - Richard Petty scores his 23rd career win by winning the pole and leading all but two of the 35 laps on the road course at Bridgehampton, NY. Richard's victory was his first career road course win.

Credit: Digital Library of Stanford University

Fred Lorenzen qualified alongside Petty in his #28 Holman & Moody Ford. Also in the field was Lee Petty in a #41 Plymouth rather than his traditional #42. Lee was making only his fourth start since his near-fatal accident at Daytona in February 1961; however, Bridgehampton was his third start in 1963.

Credit: Digital Library of Stanford University

Lorenzen grabbed the lead from Richard at the start and led the first two laps. But Richard took it back from him on lap 3 and led the rest of the way.

#107648996 / gettyimages.com

Photo and article courtesy of Jerry Bushmire

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Edited July 21, 2014

July 18 - This day in Petty history - part 2

Another bonus blog entry about the history of Richard Petty nestled amongst my posts about his 200 wins...

1958 - Richard Petty makes his first of what became 1,184 career NASCAR Grand National / Winston Cup starts. He started 7th in a field of 19 cars in a race apparently known as the Jim Mideon 500, a 100-lap race on the 1/3-mile paved track at the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto, Ontario. Why the race was named a '500' when it was only 100 laps on a short-track is beyond me. Or maybe, just maybe *gasp* Wikipedia might be wrong. What!! It can't be. Or can it?

NASCAR's Nationwide series has raced in recent years in Montreal and a couple of times in Mexico. And a few NASCAR drivers raced Winston Cup-type cars in exhibition races in Australia in the late 1980s and Japan in the 1990s. But to date, the 1959 Toronto race remains the one and only official, NASCAR Grand National / Cup race ever held outside the United States. Even though CNE only hosted one Grand National race, the track had a history of racing and fast cars.

About a week earlier, Richard made his professional racing debut driving a #42 Oldsmobile in a convertible race at Columbia Speedway in South Carolina. He, crew chief Dale Inman, and crewman (and Maurice Petty's father-in-law) Red Myler, bolted a roof to the car, updated the car number to #142 (to distinguish Richard's car from Lee Petty's #42), and hauled it to Canada.

Richard wrecked his Oldsmobile and finished 17th in his debut GN start. Well, kinda. Apparently, he wasn't super fast in his debut start. His father came up on him at speed, realized the car was holding him up, treated him like any other backmarker and punted his own son into the fence ending his night. All was not lost for the Petty family, as Lee did go on to win the race.

In the book King Richard I authored by Petty and William Neely, Richard recalled:

Daddy didn't give me any special consideration on the racetrack. I was just another car to him, and he would just as soon beat me as he would a total stranger...I was in third or fourth spot, and it was late in the race. Cotton Owens was leading and Daddy was chasing him. They both came up to lap me. Cotton knew I was a rookie so he backed off to give me time to get through the corner. He knew he could pass me coming out of the turn. Well, this was the chance Daddy had been waiting for. When Cotton backed off, Daddy went charging right by him. The only trouble was here I was right in Daddy's path. He hit me and knocked me into the fence. The impact tore the bumper clean off my car...I didn't say anything after the race, but it made me mad. I mean all I was trying to do was stay out of the way, and he came barreling in there and wham! he knocked me into the boards. It wasn't easy fixing up those cars; he knew that. But that was how Daddy drove. ~ pp. 142-143.

During the King's final season as a driver, Pepsi released an 8-bottle set commemorating highlights of Petty's career. Among them was a bottle recognizing his first start in 1958. (I'll pardon Pepsi's error of referring to it as his first "Winston Cup" race.)

Then - one year later to the day...

1959 - Richard wins his first professional stock car race - a 200-lap NASCAR convertible race at Columbia Speedway in South Carolina. The win is not included in Petty's 200 Grand National / Winston Cup victory total.

Source: The News and Courier, July 20, 1959 via Google News Archive

It was his only win in the convertible series, and the event was the final convertible series race at Columbia. NASCAR ended the convertible series at the end of 1959, and Richard turned his focus to full-bodied sedans.

Greg Fielden recaps the race in his book, Rumblin' Ragtops: The History of NASCAR's Fabulous Convertible Division:

Richard Petty, driving a new '59 Plymouth Convertible, scored the first victory of his career in the 100-miler at Columbia Speedway. ... Petty, who turned 22 two weeks earlier, was taking his second ride in the Plymouth after driving '57 Oldsmobiles for parts of two seasons. His father Lee provided him with the new car at Daytona for the July 4 Sweepstakes Firecracker 250 - two days after his 22nd birthday. ... Petty became the third youngest driver to win a major NASCAR division contest. ... Petty was asked how it felt to finally crack victory circle. "The only difference I can tell you is first place pays more than second," he said. Petty pocketed $900 of his 56.382 MPH ride. Jack Smith chased Petty for the second half of the event, but had to settle for second place. ~ p. 123

Driver Larry Frank got very mad that night. He thought he had a good chance of winning the race at Columbia. He let off a bit to ride and conserve his tires - until Tiny Lund spun him. Larry was normally a calm and level-headed driver. But with his opportunity to win having sailed out the window, he got so mad he socked Tiny Lund right in the mush and broke his nose.

Photo (and story) courtesy of Margaret Frank, Larry's widow

Blog reader, fellow Petty fan, and Columbia resident - Gamecock43 - came through once again. He personally visited the archives of the Columbia library and found the following article in the July 19, 1959, edition of The State newspaper. Simply put, its a treasured contribution to this year-long blog series.


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July 18 - This day in Petty history - part 1

1971 - Starting second alongside Chattanooga, TN's Friday Hassler, Richard Petty leads 128 of 200 laps and wins the Northern 300 at Trenton Speedway in New Jersey to notch his 132nd career NASCAR Winston Cup victory.

Click here for a blog entry I posted about this race a couple of years ago -  including photos of the winning Petty Plymouth and a shot of NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee Wendell Scott enjoying a well-deserved cold Schaefer beer.

Buddy Baker was hired by Petty Enterprises via its contract with Chrysler Corporation. Richard raced Plymouths, and Petty Enterprises fielded a car for Baker - a Dodge - on a part-time schedule. At Trenton, Baker raced for car owner and former driver, Neil Castles.

Courtesy of Jerry Bushmire

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July 15 - This day in Petty history - part 3

1971 - Richard Petty captures his 131st career NASCAR Grand National victory by winning the pole, leading all 230 laps, and winning the Islip 250.

According to Greg Fielden in his book, Forty Years of Stock Car Racing - Volume 3:

An embarrassing scoring mistake shaved 20 laps off the scheduled Islip 250, but it didn't matter to Richard Petty. Petty led all the way and was in front when the checkered flag was mistakenly dropped at 230 laps... "Don't tell nobody about them 20 laps they forgot to run," cracked a weary Petty. "It seems like we ran 500 laps out there. This has to be the smallest track in the country. You relax one moment and you've run over three cars." ~ pp. 349-359

Veteran, independent driver, G.C. Spencer, had a good race and finished 5th for his final career Top 5. The Johnson City, TN driver once drove three races in 1967 in a second Petty Enterprises Plymouth, and he finished in the top 5 in two of those three starts. Spencer's legacy extended beyond his days as a driver and later an owner. In the early 1980s, he sold his team to Tim Morgan and Larry McClure. The two of them re-formed the team as Morgan McClure Motorsports and had a good streak of success in the 1990s with drivers including Ernie Irvan, Sterling Marlin and Bobby Hamilton.

In June 2010, I posted a blog entry about the short track near Long Island, NY. The track has a rich history - for Petty, Bobby Allison, demolition derbies, and Schaefer beer.

Article courtesy of Jerry Bushmire

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July 15 - This day in Petty history - part 2

1969 - Starting from the pole in his Petty blue #43 Ford Torino, Richard Petty leads about a third of the race (91 of 300 laps) and wins the Beltsville 300 at Beltsville Speedway in Maryland for his 97th career NASCAR Grand National victory.

Courtesy Chris Hussey

Career rival, David Pearson, was initially flagged as the race winner. After checking the scoring records for 40 minutes, Petty was declared the winner. The teams' scorers apparently got confused a bit during pit stops by Pearson and Petty with only a couple of laps to go as more fully described in the following article.

For decades, scoring for NASCAR races was done manually. NASCAR provided a scorer for each car, and the team provided its own scorer as well. The records for the pair should have matched at the end of each race. Frequently, however, the records didn't match, and NASCAR would have to sort through the discrepancies.



TMC
Edited June 19, 2014