#56 - The World 600
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06/21/2018 Matt McLaughlin |
(Editor’s Note) In 1997
- 1998, Matt McLaughlin penned a special Anthology of historical pieces in
honor of the 50th Anniversary of NASCAR entitled "50 Years of NASCAR
Racing." Matt has entrusted the entire collection, minus one or two that
were misfiled back then and cannot be salvaged, to my tender, loving care.
As NASCAR turns 70, the
Anthology itself will celebrate a 20th anniversary through 2018, and will run
again here on Race Fans Forever. As before, there is no record of which pieces
came first, so it will appear in the sequence presented earlier. Please, sit
back and enjoy as you take a journey back through the pages of history and
perhaps relive a memory or two.
As always, many thanks
to Matt, and God bless you my friend. ~PattyKay
There may be a race more prestigious, a race that is faster and a race
that is older, but there are none longer than the traditional Memorial Day
weekend World 600. First staged in 1960, the event has been always been a
challenge of survival to man and machine, and a crowning achievement in any
driver's resume.
The 600-mile length of the inaugural event was an attempt to upstage the
Daytona 500 by Curtis Turner and perpetual showman Bruton Smith. To put it
kindly, the first running of the classic race was an unmitigated disaster. The
date had to be pushed back June 19th, 1960, when the race track was not
completed in time, and the asphalt did not have time to cure properly. Shortly
after the cars took to the track in practice, the asphalt began coming up,
leaving deep potholes and spraying the cars with fist-sized clumps of the track
surface. The situation got so bad the three Petty cars (driven by Lee, Richard
and Bobby Johns) were equipped with protective screens over the radiator area
and windshields soon thereafter. In a feat of sheer guts, Fireball Roberts set
a pole speed of close to 134 MPH on the pockmarked surface. While the owners
announced the crowd as 70,000 plus, less than half that were actually on hand,
and the inflated number was a ruse to try to calm anxious creditors clamoring
to be paid by the financially troubled facility. During the race, Fireball
Roberts charged into an early lead, only to be eliminated in a crash before one
third of the event was run, when he got out of shape in the "marbles"
that littered the track. Tom Pistone took his turn at the front but was slowed
and eventually eliminated by brake failure. Jack Smith took the point and led
for 193 laps. He had actually built up a five lap lead over second place runner
Joe Lee Johnson when a chunk of asphalt punched a hole in Smith's fuel tank.
Johnson went on to lead the final 72 laps and had a four-lap advantage over
Johnny Beauchamp when the race ended. 24 of the 60 cars were officially listed
as running after the brutal race, with the three Petty cars flagged as
finishing in positions three through five. Of those 24 cars, six were
disqualified days later, including Richard and Lee Petty, for making improper
entrances to the poorly designed pit road.
The winner of the 1967 event was another great driver whose name has
almost been lost to history, and he overcame some long odds to hang onto his
victory. Firestone had a new tire available to the drivers that day, and as
they were extremely quick in qualification and practice, most of the field
mounted up that particular compound for the race. Unfortunately, under race
conditions the tires wore out quickly and began falling apart, forcing those
drivers to make frequent pit stops. Jim Paschal, his '67 Plymouth shod with
Goodyears, played tortoise to the Firestone hares and took advantage of
superior tire life to build up a comfortable 3-lap lead, turning laps in the
150 MPH range. Paschal seemed to be on his way to an easy victory when he got
high off a corner, into the marbles and slid sideways into the wall. The big
Plymouth rode 300 feet down the wall with sparks flying as the right side sheet
metal was ground away. The caution flew and Paschal limped to the pits to have
his Friedkin Enterprises crew attempt to repair the
car. They used sledge hammers and crowbars to get the sheet-metal off the tires
but there was no way to repair the suspension or the toe-out that was knocked
into left field. Paschal returned to the track, having lost his entire three
lap advantage and manhandled the ill handling Plymouth around the track, his
speed down to 141 MPH average laps. When Bobby Allison and David Pearson began
closing on him, Paschal took the bit in his teeth, and even knowing something
could break at any moment, he upped his speed to a 148 MPH average to hold on
and win by five seconds over Pearson in one of the most awesome displays of
guts and determination in our sport ever. As a side note, Neil Castles drove an
odd looking Dodge that day. There was a movie camera on the rear deck being
used to shoot footage for the Elvis Presley flick, "Speedway."
Castles had to pit frequently to let the camera crews change film reels.
The promoters at Charlotte have always seemed to have a great love of
publicity stunts, and Richard Howard was no exception. He came up with an idea
where fans got to vote for their favorite locals drivers in the "Big
Chance Special" contest , with the winners receiving the chance to drive
in the 600 in one of two cars, one prepared by Junior Johnson, and the other an
entry belonging to Doc Fuastina. Charlie Blanton won
the Faustina ride and actually made it into the top ten for a while before
dropping out with mechanical failure. Buddy Baker dominated much of the race,
but blew a tire and spun his car on lap 264. Undeterred, Baker charged into the
pits, got fresh rubber and launched a determined effort to get back to the
front, retaking the lead from Richard Petty five laps later. David Pearson challenged
late in the event, but on the final caution flag pit stops, the Wood Brothers
elected to replace just two tires, while Baker's crew went all the way around
his car. The extra traction of the fresh left hand tires proved to be the
advantage Baker needed to overhaul his swift rival and hang on to win the race
by 1.8 seconds over David.
Pearson was back in 1974 with a score to settle. That year's race was
shortened to 540 miles due to the Energy Crisis, but there was no shortage of
energy under the hood of Pearson's Wood Brothers Mercury. Other drivers showing
considerable muscle included perennial 70's front runners, Richard Petty, Cale
Yarborough, Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip, the new kid on the block. With
18 laps to go, David and Cale were battling for second while Richard Petty was
leading. The pursuing pair got into some oil in a turn and made contact.
Yarborough bought the wall while Pearson sped on in pursuit of Petty. Soon
after the restart, Pearson muscled his way past the King with nine laps
remaining and the two waged a spirited battle until the King decided he had
nothing for David and eased off a bit to bring home a second rather than a
wreck. Still, the margin of victory was only .6 seconds when Pearson took the
flag. Allison grabbed third with Darrell Waltrip right on his rear bumper.
The 1978 running of the World 600 provided what is arguably the most
exciting finish in the history of the event. Darrell Waltrip had the lead when
Dale Earnhardt, making only his fifth Winston Cup start in a car Richard Howard
had arranged for the popular local to drive, spun with four laps to go and
brought out the caution flag, bunching up the field for a two-lap dash for all
the marbles. Waltrip was at the point, with Donnie Allison and Benny Parsons behind
him. Going into turn one just after the green flag flew, Benny tried passing
Allison on the high side and the two cars hit. Allison managed to stay out of
the wall, but Parsons went spinning and nailed David Pearson. The dramatic
shuffling of the deck left Waltrip in first at the stripe, with Donnie Allison
second, his brother Bobby having slipped into third, Yarborough fourth, and
Pearson and Parsons recovering to hang onto fifth and sixth, Benny piloting a
badly mangled Olds to the line.
Dale Earnhardt is a three time winner at the World 600, but those wins
have not always been without controversy. Such was the case in the 1992 event.
That particular race was dominated by Kyle Petty, though Ernie Irvan had made
an outstanding charge from two laps down to harass Kyle from a close second
place position. Both drivers had close to a four-second advantage over third
place Earnhardt who had not yet led a single lap the that day, but all three
drivers still needed to make a final pit stop. Petty and Irvan pitted together,
slowing carefully to the 55 MPH pit road speed to avoid a penalty. Petty's pit
crew was three tenths of a second faster on that round of stops and he returned
to the track just ahead of Ernie. The next time by, Earnhardt came roaring into
the pits, seemingly heedless of the pit road speed limit, and in a nifty if
frightening bit of driving, locked up his brakes and skidded thirty feet, but
wound up dead center in his pit stall. Earnhardt's crew did indeed beat Petty's
by eight tenths of a second, but still considering he had been 3 seconds behind
before the pit stops, many people were shocked to see Dale take the lead after
his stop, and the only logical explanation was he had violated the pit road
speed limit. Earnhardt tactfully said later maybe he "fudged it just a
little." Irvan managed to grab second from Petty, but he had nothing for
the 3 car. After the race, both Kyle and Ernie were incensed, but there was no
way to alter the outcome. To rub a little salt in the wound, Earnhardt paid Irvan
a backhanded compliment in victory lane, saying "He (Irvan) raced me hard
but clean", then added "I was a little surprised by that."
Dale Earnhardt's performance in the 1993 World 600 seemed his answer to
his critics who had accused him of cheating in the previous year's event. The
cards seemed to be stacked against the Intimidator that day. He made a routine
pit stop and lost a lap when the caution flew before the other leaders stopped.
Dale calmly worked his way back into the lead lap in five laps. He was
penalized for speeding on pit road and held in the pits. The next stop he was
penalized yet again for too many men over the wall. At that point he was nearly
a lap down. Fighting to stay on the lead lap, Earnhardt ran into Greg Sacks and
Sacks went spinning. That spin bought out the caution flag. NASCAR had been
listening-in to Dale's radio frequency shortly before the incident and heard
Earnhardt tell his crew he needed a yellow to avoid going a lap down... and he
added he was going to see to it there was a caution period soon. That was all
the smoking gun NASCAR needed and they black-flagged Dale and held him a lap
for rough driving. That third penalty of the day seemed to incense Dale and
from that point forward he drove like a man possessed, charging through traffic
with a reckless abandon that is still the stuff of legends, picking off car
after car. Rusty Wallace spun on lap 350 and Dale was back on the lead lap.
Eight laps after the green flag racing resumed, Dale swept past Ernie Irvan to
take the lead. Irvan loudly complained that Dale had knocked him out of the
way, but perhaps NASCAR was too afraid to see how hard Earnhardt was going to
drive if they penalized him a fourth time. He probably would have set the track
ablaze. Dale Earnhardt won the race by almost four seconds over rookie Jeff
Gordon that day, and another page was written in the history of the legendary
driver from Kannapolis.
*Matt can no longer
field comments or email at Race Fans Forever. If you have comments or
questions, please leave them below and I’ll do my best to supply answers.
~PattyKay Lilley, Senior Editor.