#88 - The Bump and Grind
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09/20/2018 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
The bump and grind might sound like a stripper's move
or conjure images of a smoke filled disco in the late '70s, but at Martinsville
it is how a driver wins races. You bump the car ahead of you or grind fenders
to make a pass stick. It's a fact of life with that many cars out there on a
short track, running that fast with all those drivers wanting to win, there's
going to be paint swapping and fender bending from time to time, some frayed
tempers, and cars with about as many straight panels as a Baby Ruth bar,
charging down the straightaways, fenders flapping.
Take the September race in 1960. Points
leader Rex White and Joe Weatherly put on a fine show for the fans, and battled
in close quarters rubbing fenders time to time. White held on to win by a car
length after the classic duel. By scoring the win, White took a big stride
towards his championship, especially since two of his main competitors were
foiled by a crash. Lee Petty and Richard Petty both ended up into the wall…
after hitting each other. Ironically, Lee Petty had clinched his championship
at that same track the previous fall. Rex White had won that race as well, but
the elder Petty's 10th place title was all he needed to clinch his third
championship. Richard had run into trouble in that race as well. While he was
in the pits, his crew chief, Red Myler, dove under
the front end of the car trying to make a minor adjustment on that Plymouth
convertible. No one else on the pit crew noticed and when they had finished
servicing the car they hollered for him to go. Petty stormed out of the pits,
running over his own crew chief. Fortunately, Myler
received only minor burns and bruises, though the rear tire of the Plymouth
rolled over his chest. While his first few starts didn't go that well, Richard
later got the hang of the place. He went on to win 15 races there.
Standard practice in those days was to let a driver
holding you up know you wanted to get past using the "chrome horn."
The "chrome horn" was the front bumper of a race car (and they were
indeed big heavy chromed metal slabs in those days) and a driver would bump the
fellow ahead of him a few times with the frequency and severity of the bumping giving
the driver who had the position an idea of just how badly the fellow following
him wanted it. Of course, if done too frequently or too hard (or in some drivers’
cases if done at all) the fellow up front tended to get a little annoyed. Such
was the case at the Martinsville race in the fall of 1962. Fred Lorenzen was a
relative newcomer on the scene and he perhaps hadn't quite figured out the
rules of bumper tag yet. On the first restart Lorenzen began applying the
chrome horn to his own teammate Nelson Stacy, who eventually yielded position
but was none too happy about it. That left Fred in second trying to get around
Fireball Roberts for the lead and once again he began knocking, none too
politely, on Fireball's car for lap after lap. Fireball waggled a finger at Lorenzen
to indicate he better back off. Lorenzen struck Roberts a solid shot to
indicate he better let him pass. At that point, Fireball shook an angry fist.
At which point Lorenzen really began using the chrome horn loud. Finally tired
of the game, Roberts came off corner two and as Lorenzen accelerated hard
Fireball slammed on the brakes His rear bumper took out Lorenzen's
radiator, ending Fred's day. Lorenzen's teammate
Nelson Stacy took the win over Richard Petty. But Lorenzen was a quick study
and he didn't make the same mistake twice. At the fall race of 1963, he showed
uncommon aggression early in the race. While he normally hung back and drove
conservatively, waiting for Junior Johnson who always charged hard from the
drop of the green flag, to wreck or blow up, that day Lorenzen raced right from
the get go, in response to letters from fans asking Fred why Junior always
whipped him so bad at the start of a race, and the snickers of detractors that
the Golden Boy couldn't run with a Good Old Boy like Junior. On lap 40,
Lorenzen started knocking on Junior's rear bumper to let him know he would like
to pass. Junior didn't think much of the idea. Finally after eleven laps of
having his rear bumper beat up, Johnson tried the same trick Fireball had in 62
and stood on the brakes. Lorenzen was expecting the tactic and calmly ducked
low on Junior and made the pass even while Junior was still hard on the brakes.
Johnson got back in the throttle and began banging on the back of Lorenzen's car. Fred let him by, waited until lap 81 and
passed Junior cleanly without any contact. While he led the rest of the laps,
Fred's ride was not without incident. At one point a car ahead of him spun out
and Lorenzen was knocked into the side of his teammate, Nelson Stacy. An enraged
Stacy delivered a note to Lorenzen's crew chief that
said, "I'm tired of being roughed up by Lorenzen. This is my last
warning." Yes, short tracks can fray tempers.
Sometimes even the fans get involved with the rough
stuff. The Grand National circuit arrived in Martinsville in the fall of 1969,
not long after the infamous Talladega driver's boycott. Bill France had done a
masterful job of public relations, portraying the drivers as the bad guys to
the fans, and Richard Petty was the president of the Professional Driver's
Association, which had staged the walk out. Throughout the race, angry fans
threw beer cans at the drivers who had participated in the boycott trying to
cause them to wreck. Late in the going Richard Petty was running a distant
second to David Pearson, and some nitwit who decided he didn't like Richard
threw a full can of beer and nailed Petty's windshield. Fortunately Petty was
not injured and ironically the beer can helped him instead of hurt him. NASCAR
threw the yellow flag for debris on the track. Pearson pitted and Petty
remained on the track assuming the lead. Petty held on to the lead for the rest
of the race as Pearson got boxed in by slower traffic and used up his brakes.
The fall 1980 race was slowed 17 times for caution
flags, totaling 79 laps…and a whole bunch of cars. One early incident involved
at least 16 cars and wound up blocking the entire track. By the end of the day
there were few cars that weren't badly banged up. Not all the cars were damaged
in accidents. Sometimes drivers hit each other on purpose. Dale Earnhardt
banged hard into Dave Marcis on lap 217. The veteran
driver didn't much care for the sophomore driver's actions and responded by
sending Earnhardt spinning in the next corner. The yellow flag flew and
Earnhardt charged through the pack to find Marcis and
knocked the heck out of his car several times. After a few laps Dale cooled off
and motioned to Dave he was sorry. Amazingly enough, Dale went on to take the
win rather easily when Buddy Baker's brakes gave out. After the race Earnhardt
was booed but shrugged it off. He told reporters, "I'm not here to stroke.
Cale, Benny and Petty don't stroke. I got here by running hard and I'll
continue to do that." Dale was a man of his word if nothing else.
There was a tight points race
between Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison in 1982 when the circuit reached
Martinsville in the Fall. Waltrip was leading the race when Lake Speed spun in
front of him and hit DW a solid shot as he tried to get past. Dale Earnhardt
thought he saw an opportunity to pass and ran smack dab right into the middle
of the mess. Darrell's car was badly bent up, the toe in knocked out, a ball
joint bent, front end sheetmetal battered and the wheel leaning noticeably, but
he kept right on charging. Allison dominated the race but his DiGard engine
blew late in the going. Ironically, Darrell had suffered a steady stream of
blown motors when he drove for DiGard. As bad as it looked, DW powered his way
back to the front in what was left of the Mountain Dew Buick and went on to
take the win, and another giant step forward towards the championship.
At the fall race of 1985 at Martinsville, Dale
Earnhardt once again put on a fine show, racing with Tim Richmond. Dale and Tim
were friends and often socialized off the track together, but during a race,
friendships don't count for much. The pair had been engaged in a stirring side
by side battle with the crowd cheering them on. Richmond seemed to have the
advantage until Earnhardt popped him one in the rear bumper, sending Tim up the
track out of his way. Richmond didn't take too kindly to that and cut hard down
into Earnhardt. Just at that moment when things really could have gotten ugly,
Greg Sacks got into points leader Bill Elliott and spun him around right in front
of Dale and Tim. Earnhardt managed to dive low, while Tim had to get out of the
gas to avoid the wreck, and Dale led for the rest of the race. The toe in had
been knocked out on Richmond's car in the banging incident and it was not
handling well enough for him to catch up to Earnhardt. While Elliott's mishap
was a break for Earnhardt, it was a disaster for Bill. Darrell Waltrip was
mounting a late season charge to wrest the championship from Elliott, who had
seemed to have it all but locked up after Darlington. The spin and lengthy
repairs in the pits dropped Bill to 17th. Meanwhile, Darrell Waltrip, who had
survived a six car crash early in the race, got around Richmond and sped on to
a second place finish. Elliott's once formidable points lead dwindled to 23
markers. Richmond had to pit late and dropped to seventh. After the race he was
clearly angry and told reporters he and Dale hadn't evened the score yet. He
still owed Earnhardt one. Earnhardt was philosophical about the encounter.
"Yeah, I bumped him in the corner… He gave me a shot to know he didn't
like it. I grew up watching guys like Ralph Earnhardt, Tiny Lund, and Dink Widenhouse. If I hollered every time I got hit you'd think
I was a crybaby."
The most famous of all bump and grind incidents at Martinsville
took place during the fall race of 1987. The race had been a three-way contest
between Dale Earnhardt, Terry Labonte and Darrell Waltrip all day. Towards the
end, Earnhardt seemed to assert himself while Darrell seemed to fall off the
pace and in fact went a lap down to Earnhardt's torrid pace. Dale had to stop
to for a splash and go which allowed Darrell to get back on the lead lap and
he, Earnhardt and Labonte were the only drivers on the lead lap. In fact,
fourth place Neil Bonnett was two laps behind. A caution flag flew with seven
laps to go and bunched the threesome together. It came down to a three lap
shoot out for all the marbles and the racing was furious, with Earnhardt
clinging to the advantage. In turn one on the final lap Labonte decided to make
his bid and tried passing Earnhardt on the high side. Earnhardt scooted up the
track to try to block the bid. He in fact made contact with Labonte, who made a
great save to keep the car off the wall. In corner three Terry tried to go low
on Earnhardt, who slipped up the track just a bit. But at that precise moment,
seeing one last chance to win, Waltrip ran into the back of Labonte. Labonte
got sideways and rammed into Earnhardt while Darrell went to the far bottom of
the track and passed them both, having used Labonte's
car rather than the brakes to slow him down enough to make the turn. Labonte
spun and Earnhardt got crossed up trying to save his car. That allowed Waltrip
to take the checkers by a 1.8 second margin. After the race DW just grinned
when asked by the press about the incident. "I shot into Terry, he shot
into Dale and I shot into the lead." He laughed. Labonte and Earnhardt
were in no laughing mood. Labonte was angry with both his competitors. That
perhaps was understandable. But Dale's comments seemed unintentionally ironic.
Speaking of DW's move he said, "They should have put him into the penalty
box." But perhaps DW had grown up watching Ralph Earnhardt, Tiny Lund and
Dink Widenhouse too?
Historical Footnote: Not all the top drivers were at
the Martinsville race in 1951. Why? There were three separate points paying
Grand National races held that day; Martinsville, Shippenville Pa, and Oakland
Ca. And you thought the current schedule was tough?
*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.