On April 9, 1966 - Easter Saturday - NASCAR's Grand National drivers raced at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina. David Pearson dominated the second half of the race and won by a full lap over Richard Petty.
After taking Easter Sunday off for church, family, food, egg hunts, car repairs, etc., the teams were back at it on Easter Monday for a 200-lap battle on the quarter-mile track at Bowman Gray Stadium.
After having won three times in the span of a week at Hickory, Columbia, and Greenville-Pickens, David Pearson was shooting for his fourth consecutive win.
Pearson got off to a good start in Cotton Owens' Dodge by winning the pole. The race was the Stadium's first after a recent repaving. Pearson's qualifying lap on the new surface was about four miles per hour faster than Richard Petty's pole-winning speed the previous August and five miles per hour quicker than Junior Johnson's hot lap the previous May.
Pearson backed up his top qualifying speed by winning the first of two 25-lap heat races. Tiger Tom Pistone won the second heat in his independent Ford and started on the outside of the front row. Two more independent Fords driven by Bobby Allison and Elmo Langley made up the second row. The factory-supported Ford drivers remained sidelined as Ford Motor Company and Big Bill France of NASCAR remained at loggerheads over the Blue Oval's desired use of its new single overhead cam engine. Interestingly, 15 Fords started the race - none of which were factory-supported cars.
When the green dropped, Tiger stormed into the lead from his P2 starting spot and held serve for the first half-dozen laps. Pearson's white and red Dodge then eased by Pistone to take the lead. Once out front, Pearson controlled the rest of the afternoon.
Despite leading lap after lap after lap, Pearson came close to being thumped by the fickle finger of fate. With about 50 laps to go and a half-lap lead on Pistone, Pearson's engine inexplicably quit. It didn't break - it just quit running. Instinctively, Pearson started jiggling some wires, ANY wires in the hopes of getting the fire to return. Finally, the Dodge roared back to life just as Pistone was making a pass for the lead - and perhaps the win.
Pearson then had a fight on his hands for a couple of laps. He never surrendered the lead, however, and continued leading the rest of the way. In the end, Pearson led the remaining 154 laps to claim his 17th career win and fourth in a row.
Pistone fought valiantly to hang with Pearson throughout the race. Yet he couldn't regain the lead and returned home with a solid second place finish - just as he'd started.
With Pearson banking lap after lap, fans found their excitement elsewhere in the field. Petty and J.T. Putney raced hard in the early stages of the race. On the 64th lap, Petty banged past Putney for the fourth position. The pass had a cost though as Petty lost two laps in the pits as the crew pulled back a wrinkled fender from a tire.
The King set sail after the stop and soon passed Putney with relative ease. As the race wore on, Petty once again found himself behind Putney with an opportunity to get by him for position. Putney had no intention of giving up the real estate - particularly on the quarter-mile bullring. Petty chrome-horned Putney a few times yet J.T. hung in there. Then Putney started brake-checking Petty perhaps hoping the 43's nose and radiator would go kaput.
With about 25 laps to go, Petty seized the moment. He darted past Putney to reclaim the fourth spot that he'd lost about 100 laps earlier. Putney's heat-of-the moment emotions then got the best of him. After Petty's pass, Putney gassed it up and charged the corner in an attempt to exact some revenge on the Petty Blue Plymouth. Instead, he overshot the tight corners and found himself wadded up in the turn four guardrail. In a split second, Putney the Putz went from an all but certain top five finish to a disappointing P12.
Putney's attempted revenge on Petty may remind some of a similar move with a similar outcome by another "P" driver decades later: Danica Patrick.
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| Source: High Point Enterprise |
TMC
Well, we have learned 2 things in this post.
ReplyDelete1) That ole #43 was a dirtier driver than usually given credit.
2) The blog author never saw the great JT Putney in action. Some nerve comparing that daring aviator & sometime racer to disappointing Danica. That's enough to leave hurt feelings.