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

Old school decals: Entry 3 of a mini-series

This entry of my racing-related decals is focused on drivers.

Here's one promoting David Pearson when he drove the Wood Brothers/Purolator Mercury. While I can't remember the exact year I got this one, it had to have been between 1976 and 1979 - the years the Silver Fox drove for them with this body style Merc.

Before Tim Richmond came to NASCAR for a brief - yet successful - career, he spent a couple of years in Indy cars. He earned rookie-of-the- year honors in the 1981 Indianapolis 500. I got this decal by writing the manufacturer of the UNO card game.

Junie Donlavey was a Virginia gentlemen and long-time car owner. Many drivers cycled through his car. Some of them were veteran drivers like Charlie Glotzbach, Dick Brooks, Jody Ridley, Benny Parsons, and Dick Trickle. And some were predicted to be up-and-comers at the time they hitched a ride with Donlavey such as Ken Schrader, Bobby Hillin Jr, Wally Dallenbach Jr, and Mike Wallace. (All predictions don't come true obviously.)

This decal is one for Ridley for the 1981 season. Coincidentally perhaps, Ridley gave Donlavey his only win as a car owner in 850+ starts in the 1981 Mason-Dixon 500 at Dover.

Many folks who became NASCAR fans in the late 1980s and into the 1990s think Dale Earnhardt was always the Man In Black. I've also heard many folks talk about his 7 championships with Richard Childress Racing and the #3 Monte Carlo. Turns out neither is true.

As Dale Jr. reminded folks in the 2010 Daytona Nationwide race, Dale Sr. raced much of the early 1980s in blue-and-yellow cars sponsored by Wrangler jeans. Also, his first Cup was won not with Childress but with car owner Rod Osterland in a #2 Chevy. In 1981, the year of this decal, Osterland Racing switched over to a Pontiac Grand Prix. Earnhardt left about 2/3 of the way through the season to join Childress.

The other thing Earnhardt fans often forget about is Dale Sr. actually drove a Ford in 1982-1983. After joining Childress in late 1981, they only stayed together the rest of that season. Childress encouraged Earnhardt to look elsewhere while he built up Richard Childress Racing. Dale Sr. went to Bud Moore's Ford team along with his Wrangler sponsorship for two years.

I'll wrap this entry up with a decal for the late Benny Parsons, the 1973 Winston Cup champion and 1975 Daytona 500 winner. Of the cars U.S. Tobacco sponsored, Harry Gant's Skoal Bandit was perhaps the most well-recognized. But I always thought BP's Cope car was a pretty cool looking car in its own right.

TMC

Old school decals: Entry 2 of a mini-series

Continuing the mini-series of a few of my racing-related decals - entry #2...

When Roger Penske built his 2-mile Michigan oval, the track was originally named Michigan International Speedway. The track was later bundled with Penske's California Speedway, sold to International Speedway Corporation (NASCAR's publicly-traded kissin' cousin company), and renamed simply Michigan Speedway.

For about the last 30 years, all the media and fan hype during the off-season builds toward February's Daytona 500 to open a new Cup season. Throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, however, the Cup drivers opened the season in January at the road course in Riverside, CA. Also, when Ontario Motor Speedway closed following the 1980 season, Riverside took its place as the season-ending race. NASCAR's new Cup champ was crowned at Riverside from 1981 through 1988 before Riverside too went the way of Ontario.

• Bobby Allison secured his one and only Cup championship at Riverside in 1983.
• Ricky Rudd and Bill Elliott won their first career Cup races at Riverside.
• Tim Richmond won his first (driving for J.D. Stacy) and last (driving for Rick Hendrick) Cup races at the track.
• Richard Petty won at Riverside in 1969 in his first ever race with Ford and again in 1972 in his first ever race with STP as a sponsor.

Here's one I had forgotten about - a decal of Nashville Speedway. As I recall, I think track workers gave away the stickers on certain nights as fans entered the track. The hope was fans would put them on the rear glass of their cars, and it seems like certain freebies were available if you were spotted with the decal. But I'm not 100% certain. However, I do remember the significance of the 92 on the car on the decal. Do you? Make your guess in the comments section. Here is a hint. Its the car number of a speedway track champion who went on to have a long, if not successful, career in Cup.

Rockingham. The Rock. Two names most often used for the track in the sandhills of North Carolina. Rarely did folks refer to it by its proper name: North Carolina Motor Speedway. The track lost its Cup dates early in the 2000s and was all but given up for dead. But Andy Hillenburg bought the track, spruced it up, renamed it Rockingham Speedway, and a few events have now returned. Its certainly a happier story than the fate that befell tracks like Riverside, Ontario, Trenton, Nashville, North Wilkesboro, and countless others.

Like Rockingham, few folks ever called Talladega by its original name: Alabama International Motor Speedway. Even shortening it to the acronym AIMS didn't help the name roll off the tongue. Eventually International Speedway Corporation got tired of wrestling with the name and rebranded the track as Talladega Superspeedway. If they had really wanted to cater to the track's diehards, they would have named it "Tallahdayger".


I'll close this entry with a couple of decals from the good ol' days of Atlanta. The track was a true oval, and the track was named Atlanta International Raceway (AIR). When Bruton Smith and Speedway Motorsports bought the track, the name was changed to Atlanta Motor Speedway. For many years, this logo is the one I most often associated with the track.

This next one, however, baffles me. I've got the decal, but I don't have a memory or the knowledge. The logo is a good bit different than the AIR logo I remember. But it was also fun for me to re-discover the decal and logo unexpectedly.

Entry #3: Hmm, I think I might roll with decals of non-Petty drivers.

TMC

Old school decals: Entry 1 of a mini-series

While looking through a lot of old racing memorabilia earlier this week, I stumbled across an envelope of racing-related decals. From the late 1970s through the mid-80s spanning my pre-teen through late college years, I was a letter-writing, swag-begging, wide-eyed race fan. Letters were sent to just about any racing-related entity for whom I could get an address. Tracks, corporations who sponsored drivers and/or races, fan clubs, etc.

Back in the day, the overwhelming majority of organizations to whom I wrote sent something to me - photos, postcards, brochures, programs, patches, press kits, decals, etc. I've held on to virtually everything sent to me back then.

So how about a mini-series of a few old school decals I've still got. I won't bore you with some of the logos that have remained the same such as STP, Bell helmets, Holley carbs, Gabriel shocks, etc. Instead, I'd like to share images of a few of them whose shelf-life has come and gone - except for historical look-back purposes.

Because this is the first in the series, where else can I start but with a Petty theme?

My first Richard Petty decal - designed to look like his famed STP Dodge Charger.

A year or so after the above decal was released, the below decal became available. The King would tack on two more Daytona 500 victories in his career to add to the five noted on the decal.

I received this one for being a sh0-nuff, card-carrying member of the Richard Petty fan club.
To answer your question, yes I do still have my fan club membership card.

Southern Pride car washes was an associate sponsor on the 43 in 1979-1980 time frameHere the company can clearly be seen as a prominent associate sponsor on Petty's Oldsmobile on its way to victory in the 1979 Daytona 500.

Entry 2: How about NASCAR tracks? Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, do you collect old decals also? If so, let me know. After I blog my own, I'm open minded about perhaps blogging favorites of others.

Update 2011-01-31: Just found this photo of The King sporting a trucker's cap with a Southern Pride Car Wash patch matching the decal I've got.


TMC