The Unofficial, Self-Appointed Gloom & Doom Police...
Theres alot of reasons why I root against Dale Jr but at least Sr made him run his own deal on the short tracks for a while.
I dunno, I think you learn alot more driving a sh*t box in the back of the pack with just you and a buddy fixing it every week for a couple years than you do by sitting in a folding chair on the tail of a 40 foot race car hauler while dads hired help changes everything but the number and the color after hot laps
But Im a little too Old Skool at times
Faster than a bullet from a gun
He is faster than everyone
Quicker than the blinking of an eye
Like a flash you could miss him going by
No one knows quite how he does it but it's true they say
He's the master of going faster. -George Harrison
Enough with this digression. Let's get back to cars. I took a bunch of pictures last weekend at the musuem at Talladega. I might start a separate "when stock cars were stock" thread but it was interesting to look at some of these 70's an 80's cars up close to see how many factory parts there are on them. Check out Ron Bouchard's Race Hill Farm Buick.
And the header panel/headlight bucket detail.
Straight out of the GM parts catalogue, if not off a car the picked up at the local dealer.
Keith Koether http://www.kkraceshots.com
Ex ARCA, ASA and local bullring crewdog. I remember when racing was really racing and the Talladega Express!!!
And check out Waltrip's Monte Carlo SS from circa 1986 or 1987.
Then look at that rear quarter window and seal,
The rear "aerocoupe" window,
and the turn signal bucket.
Absolutely stock, as is I assume the entire roof assembly.
DALE JARRETT...DAYTONA..93...BUSCH CAR
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LARRY PIERSON...TOM PECK...DAYTONA..1993...BUSCH CARS
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DALE JARRETT.......JIMMY HENSLEY IN JIMMY MEANS CAR.....DAYTONA 1993
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Back when stock cars were stock cars. Paul Goldsmith in a Nichels Pontiac. Still equipped with chrome trim, door handles, and vent windows. Door locks, even...
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JOHNNY BENSON....JIMMY SPENCER...DAYTONA..1994
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RICH BICKLE...JIMMEY HENSLEY...DAYTONA..1994
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Jimmy Spencer sponsored by Food City? There's the perfect tie-in.
"An emphasis was placed on drivers with road racing backgrounds which meant drivers from open wheel, oval track racing were at a disadvantage. That led Tony George to create the IRL." -Indy Review 1996
Jack Beebe, the owner of Race Hills Farms was an interesting fellow. His fortune was made by operating and maintaining fleets of school buses up north. He liked cars, his wife liked horses, thus Race Hill Farms. They lived in Osprey, Florida. He had a nice run for a few years and left the sport. Jack was his own man and knew when it was getting to big for an operation like his. If my mind hasn't failed me, Cale Yarborough bought his team. Their shop was in a small building in Charlotte, VERY close to the Airport.
Ignorant men marvel at extraordinary things. Intelligent men admire simple things.
I can still remember when Ron Bocuhard won that race @ Talladega in a Race Hill Farms car in 1981. It was on live TV which was still a rare event in 1981. The last several laps were a real barn burner. Only problem was that the video crapped out with a lap or two to go and all they had coming out on TVs was the audio. The greatest TV finish no one saw
Ron Bouchard is doen drviing but still has a hand in NASCAR modifieds
Waltrip and Terry Labonte headed for the checkers. Suddenly, Bouchard went to the inside to steal his only career Cup win.
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I keep forgetting which was which (prior to the title sponsorship days), but wasn't the Talladega 500 the fall race and the Alabama 500 the spring race? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Some fans claim one series or another runs "real race cars." What's everybody else running, fake race cars? :confused:
INDYCAR - NOW IZODIER THAN EVER!
my blog ... I'm not a big fat woodchuck, I'm THE big fat woodchuck.
There was one spring race called the Alabama 500 - 1970. The inaugural race in fall 1969 was the Talladega 500. The spring race became the Winston 500 in 71. Both kept their names until about the mid-80s when DieHard batteries added its name to the summer, Talladega 500 race.
Anybody remember a Talladega race in the early 70s (1973?) when the whole front half of the field, maybe the top 20 cars, were wiped out in a giant wreck? The remaining cars, none of which usually ran up front, waged a heck of a battle for the remainder of the race. The race was won by Dick Brooks in a '72 Plymouth.
Re: Historic Stock Car Photos
Riverside, Calif..........."Napa 400..........June, 1977 (+ also some discussion of the accompanying Sportsman race).
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I saw this in a parking lot last week. Dont see them too often these days.
I figured it sorta fit with the theme of this thread
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Here's a couple of photos from the second tire test NASCAR did at IMS in 1993. Here's a link to some other photos from the same test.
http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y28...%20Aug%201993/
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My first Indy 500 was 1973, haven't missed one since 1981. To date I have attended 35 Indy 500's, and probably 100 or so other IndyCar races (CART & IRL).
The 2+2s are so ugly but I still want one
If that makes any sense
As I understand it, all of the production 2+2s were silver. Well, all but one. The King, Richard Petty, loves his street cars black. When Petty Enterprises ran the 2+2 in the 86-87, Pontiac gave him a black version. I took a picture of it during a recent trip to Petty's Garage - Richard's restoration/custom business now operating in the old PE shops. Doug Murph, former PE car chief and current PG employee who showed me around, told me this one doesn't have a VIN so it will never be titled. I thought it was a pretty neat trivia item.
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+1 million ... I may get flamed for saying this, but does anyone out there really think that Dale Sr. ... and I'm not talking the savvy, poised, street-smart, able to tone down the rough edges and hold his own in front of anyone Dale Sr. of his glory days, but the rookie Dale Sr. of 1979 who could drive unbridled hell out of a race car but was, for all intents and purposes, an unpolished, uncommunicative and downright surly ******* ... would even get a pit pass in the year 2011, let alone behind the wheel of a Cup car?
Nope, you're a race off ... the big wreck, the "biggest" "Big One" there ever has been or ever will be, was in the spring race in 1973, when Big Bill France for some inexplicable reason decided to start 60 cars and there was like 40 mph between the pole and No. 60. That's the wreck in which Wendell Scott got hurt so bad, and was the wreck where people who missed it the first time got caught up in it when they came back around on the next lap. David Pearson won that race. Dick Brooks won the fall race that year in the '72 Plymouth. That's the race when Bobby Isaac pulled in and retired when he heard "voices," and the race in which Larry Smith was killed in the most minor accident you ever saw ... that happened right in front of me between turns one and two ... and I found out years later when I became a "media person" and got to "hear things," and this has always been rumored but I can tell you it's gospel truth, I talked to people who saw the helmet, the reason he got killed is that the inner liner of his helmet irritated his head so he ripped it out.
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