A Little Ramble in Delaware
There have been 94 Grand
National/Cup/Monster/NASCAR races in Delaware, and every one of them has been
at Dover Downs Int’l Speedway. That’s a shame; Delaware Int’l Raceway and
Georgetown Speedway are both big and fast dirt half-miles that would separate
the adults from the adolescents among current Cup competitors. In an earlier
day, the Delaware State Fairgrounds at Harrington would have accomplished the
same thing (it was used for horses, cars and motorcycles but is just for the
ponies these days.) If only . . .
Dover is unique among NASCAR
tracks in that it was built for horses and cars from the beginning, although
each had its own racing surface. Cars were somewhat secondary in the early days
(and might be headed that way again), but the whole enterprise is anchored to a
casino now.
Here’s Petty in a Chevy; he also won in a Ford, a
Dodge and a Plymouth. Petty, David Pearson and Bobby Allison dominated Dover’s
early days.
The first auto race was held
in 1969, a 300-lapper held two days after the Firecracker 400
at Daytona (ask the engineers to pull that off today). Not surprisingly, since
there was no time to fix anything after Daytona, the starting lineup was filled
with make-do entries:
Virginian Jabe Thomas’ car
owner had two entries, but Thomas drove neither, choosing instead a backup Bill
Champion Ford (which he wrecked). Jabe’s car owner
Don Robertson’s cars were both in the garage by lap 10. Tour regular Ed Negre drove a backup car for tour regular Neil Castles, and
Elmo Langley hopped into his own backup car, leaving his regular #64 to
substitute driver Dub Simpson, who lasted but 64 laps. Elmo finished fifth.
Most of the big teams skipped
the race, so pole-sitter David Pearson (Holman-Moody Ford #17), outside
front-row starter LeeRoy Yarbrough (Junior Johnson Ford #98) and Richard Petty
(the year back then when #43 was a Ford) dominated, and when both Pearson and
Yarbrough wrecked, Petty cruised home with the win by six laps over Richmond’s
Sonny Hutchins in Junie Donlavey’s Ford. Hutchins had qualified fourth, with
veteran G.C. Spencer and Northern Virginia late model hopeful Buddy Young
making up the third row. All those guys were good, but they lacked the
engine/tire/pit crew money to compete over the length of a race. The rest of
the field, mostly the classic NASCAR “independent” drivers, fell even farther
behind: Langley was 13 laps behind in fifth, and Cecil Gordon finished 27 laps
back in 10th.
Petty led 150 laps to 124 for
Yarbrough and 26 to Pearson.
Just for reference purposes,
at Charlotte for the 600, 17 drivers finished on the lead lap and there were 23
lead changes among 10 different drivers. (Oh, yeah, there were stages and
playoff points, too.) At Dover in 1969, there were seven lead changes among three
drivers, and the winner won by six laps.
Yet Dover, after another
300-lapper in 1970 (and another Petty win), went to two 500-lap races in 1971
and has had two races a year ever since. Why was it easy to see things as
looking UP back then and hard not to consider them looking DOWN
today? I think we’ve been over that territory before.
Here’s one difference between
then and now that appeals to me - and I’ve mentioned it before, so forgive the
repeat. I love to cheer for an underdog. Dover was always one of those races
that had a tough time filling its field, and you’d get some unusual
competitors. In 1970, John Kenney, a guy Dave Fulton and I had seen race on the
local late model tour (usually closer to the back of the pack than the front),
got into the race. OK, he only ran six laps, but he was there.
Kenny Brightbill
made several Dover starts, but as the photo below shows, this one definitely
didn’t end well. That’s Jim Hurtubise in the #0, by
the way.
For several years Junie
Donlavey put local short track stars in his #90; Eddie Pettyjohn
was one of them. I think his kid races today. Modified aces Maynard Troyer and
Kenny Brightbill ran. Donlavey once ran English road
racing standout Jackie Oliver, who finished fourth in 1972 (albeit 14 laps
back). Canadian drivers sometimes showed up because - well - Dover is closer to
Canada than Charlotte.
These days, unless somebody
buys the seat in one of the four slowest cars in the field, you see the same
troupe every week.
“Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to Dover, Del., in 1974. I want to see Brightbill and Pettyjohn show
their chops to NASCAR’s best, even though they’ll spend the rest of their
careers on the dirt. It’ll be fun, for sure.”
(Editorial Comment – The race that Jody
Ridley won at Dover on May 17, 1981 was the only win ever scored by any of the
72 different drivers that piloted Junie’s #90 in the Cup Series. Ridley had
been laps down, but when Neil Bonnett and Cale Yarborough both blew engines within
40 laps of the end, he inherited the lead and kept it. Junie expressed thoughts
on the win this way. "That took the edge off
of us winning, to tell you the truth. I understand you take a win any way you
can get it, but I didn't enjoy it."
Junie Donlavey
April 8, 1924 – June 9, 2014)