July 14 - This day in Petty history - part 2

1971 - After winning the pole, Richard Petty leads 181 of 250 laps and earns his 130th career victory by winning the Albany-Saratoga 250 at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway in Malta, NY.

Malta is located about 30 miles north of Albany in upstate New York and about ... 43 miles ... from where the borders of New York, Vermont and Massachusetts meet. The track hosted two NASCAR Grand National races in 1970-71, and the King won them both.

Source: Johnny Williams at 3 Wide Message Vault

The race was originally scheduled for Tuesday, July 13th. Rain arrived, however, and qualifying and the race were pushed back to Wednesday.

Source: Troy NY's Times Record

July 14, 1971, was a red-letter day for a few drivers:

• Independent, journeyman driver J.D. McDuffie finished 3rd - a career best. J.D. only had 12 top 5's in his 653 race career, and this finish was the best of them. Sadly, McDuffie was killed in an accident at Watkins Glen in 1991.
• Independent driver Elmo Langley finished 5th. Though not a career best (Elmo had two wins), it was a nice finish for him. He finished in the top 5 only four more times - the last one coming in 1972. Elmo retired from driving in 1981. He later became a popular pace car driver for NASCAR before passing away from a heart attack at a NASCAR exhibition race in Japan in 1996.
• NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee Wendell Scott finished 7th - the final top 10 of his career that ended in 1973.
• Ron Keselowski finished 9th. In his brief NASCAR career of 68 starts from 1970 to 1974, Ron earned two top 5's and eleven top 10's. Ron is the uncle of current driver Brad Keselowski. Coincidentally, Ron drove car number 88 in this race - the same number Brad ran when driving for JR Motorsports in the Nationwide Series.

Courtesy of Chris Hussey

Article courtesy of Jerry Bushmire

TMC
Edited July 14, 2015

July 7 - This day in Petty history

1970 - Richard Petty qualifies second, leads 136 of 250 laps, and wins the Albany-Saratoga 250 at Albany-Saratoga Speedway in Malta, NY for his 108th career NASCAR Grand National victory.

The race was the first of only two NASCAR Grand National races held at the .362-mile paved track (the other was one year later in '71). The King won them both. 

Bobby Isaac - who would go on to win the 1970 Grand National title - won the pole for the tour's first stop of its three-race Northern Tour. (The other two were at Thompson Speedway in Connecticut and the Schaefer 300 at Trenton Speedway in New Jersey.) Petty timed second and started on the front row with Issac. Bobby Allison, Dave Marcis and James Hylton rounded out the top 5 starters.

Isaac made the most of his top qualifying spot in the early stages of the race. He led the first 47 laps in what was shaping up to be a good night for his #71 team. For some reason, however, his car lost its edge. He continued to race, but he lost many laps to the leaders and ended up with a 17th place finish.

With Isaac's troubles, the blue 43 took over the top spot and led the next 131 laps. The Dale Inman-led team timed their pit strategy perfectly. Petty gave up a comfortable two-lap lead on the 178th lap to make a stop for fuel. Bobby Allison was able to make up the two-lap deficit and take the lead during Petty's stop.

Allison's team made an earlier pit stop and believed he was good to go the rest of the way. Instead, Allison's Coca-Cola Dodge ran dry with four laps to go and a half-lap lead on the King. Bobby ducked onto pit road, and his rival re-took the point and led the remaining laps for the win.

Source: Schenectady Gazette via Google News Archive

TMC
Edited July 7, 2014