A Quick Surf Through NASCAR History
(and some thoughts on what it means.)
Easter
doesn’t usually fall this late, so in most past years there has been a NASCAR
Monster/Sprint/Nextel/Winston Cup/Grand National race on this weekend. With the
usual help from Racing-Reference.info, I took a look at some of those from
decades past and added some thoughts about where we’ve come/gone.
2007 - Cue up “The Boss” singing “Glory Days.” On April 15, 2007, the
NASCAR Nextel Cup (boy, that title sure didn’t last long) series was at Texas
Motor Speedway, where Jeff Burton bested Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon
and Jamie McMurray to win the Samsung 500. Fourteen cars finished on the lead
lap.
Fewer
than half the cars in the starting field were driven by racers still active in
the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series today, and there were 51 cars on hand to
try for the 43 starting spots. Somehow, it seems like ancient history seeing
names like Kyle Petty, Robbie Gordon, Sterling Marlin and Scott Riggs in the
line-up, and it was a little surprising to me to see that Paul Menard, Reed
Sorenson and J.J. Yeley have been in the game that
long.
The
big difference, of course, was that in those days NASCAR was proud of its
attendance figures, and that number for Texas was 191,000. Ouch! The purse was
six-and-a-quarter million dollars.
1997 - Jeff Gordon won the Food City 500 on April 13 over
Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, Dale Jarrett and Mark Martin. Of the 43 starters
and four non-qualifiers, only one car was driven by a racer who ran at Texas
last weekend: Derrike Cope. (There also was the recently/finally retired
Michael Waltrip.)
Car
owners did a little better. Those active 20 years ago and today included Rick
Hendrick, Roger Penske, Jack Roush, Richard Childress, the Wood Brothers, Petty
Enterprises (with a different ownership structure back then) and single-car
entrant Joe Gibbs. Felix Sabates also was an owner in those days and remains
involved with the Ganassi team. Oh, and here’s a surprise: while they haven’t
been owners continuously at this level for 20 years, in the hunt then and now
were Mark Smith and Joe Falk as well.
The
big difference was how many owners there were. At most 2017 races, there are 20
(21 with Tommy Baldwin); in 1997, there were 35, and only six owned more than
one car. There were seven owner-drivers in that group (if you include Kyle
Petty); today there are none.
The
purse was $1.1 million. Fourteen cars finished on the lead lap.
1987 - Bristol (April 12) was the closest event to the date
this is being written, and Dale Earnhardt got the win over Richard Petty, Ricky
Rudd, Bill Elliott and Alan Kulwicki in the Valleydale Meats 500. Seven drivers
finished on the lead lap.
In
1987 short track races had smaller starting fields, and there were only 30
starters for Bristol - by design. There were 38,000 fans in the stands,
according to Racing-Reference.info, and everybody probably thought that was a
pretty good crowd. The purse was $238,000.
The
biggest difference of all: it was the Winston Cup, and four tobacco products
were primary car sponsors as well.
Although
no one in the starting field remains active in Monster/Cup, there are drivers
who ran then and are still putting on helmets (as well as the recently/finally
un-helmeted Michael Waltrip). Morgan Shepherd was a Top-10 finisher, and Ken
Schrader came home 17th.
Rick
Hendrick (three cars), Petty Enterprises and Stavola
Brothers (two each) were the only multi-car teams entered.
1977 - On April 17, Cale Yarborough won the Southeastern 500
(no presenting sponsor for most races in those days) by seven laps over Dick Brooks, with Richard Petty, Neil Bonnett and
Benny Parsons trailing even farther behind. Yarborough led all but five laps of
the race.
Of
the 22 cars running of the finish (out of 30 starters), 18 were on laps by
themselves. James Hylton and Richard Childress finished seventh and eighth,
both 21 laps behind, and Cecil Gordon and Ferrel
Harris were battling for position 66 laps back in 17th and 18th.
There
were NO multi-car teams in the field,
although 1st National City Travelers Checks sponsored Benny Parsons, Bobby
Allison and Skip Manning. The Wood Brothers and Petty Engineering were the only
teams that remain active. There was not a single sponsor present that is
primary sponsor of a Monster/Cup car today.
The
announced crowd was 30,000, and total purse was less than $80,000.
1967 - The Gwen Staley 400 (named for the promoter’s late
brother, who was killed in an accident at Richmond about a decade earlier) was
won by Darel Dieringer. Like Cale Yarborough 10 years later at Bristol, he was
driving for Junior Johnson, and he was even more dominant, leading every lap. Yarborough (then driving for
the Wood Brothers) was a lap down in second, followed by Dick Hutcherson, Jim
Paschal and Paul Lewis.
Hutcherson
and Paschal were on the same lap at the end, four laps behind Dieringer, and
the only other cars still running on the same lap at the finish were Wendell
Scott and Bill Siefert, who were 32 laps behind in
13th and 14th. Thirty-four cars started
the race, which paid a purse of about $18,000. About half the starters were
owner-drivers.
The
announced crowd was 9,400.
1957 - (“Hey, Mr. Peabody, does the WayBack Machine guarantee your return when you go back this
far?”) On April 14, the Grand
National stars and cars ran on the one-mile circle at Langhorne, Pa., and
Fireball Roberts won over Paul Goldsmith, Speedy Thompson, Billy Myers and Buck
Baker. The winner and runner-up finished on the lead lap.
Oddly
- because three cars were listed as being out of the race due to crashes and
one, factory Ford driver Bill Amick, stalled on the
opening lap and never got underway, there was only a single caution for three
laps in the 150-lap contest, which appears not to have had a name.
(Editor’s note: Not all races had names “back
in the day”, but we’re sure that the drivers had lots of names for races at
that big left turn… none of them printable in mixed company)
Although
Langhorne’s fall race, a 300-lap/miler, was the second highest paying event on
the 1957 schedule (after Darlington’s Southern 500, which paid more than twice
as much), the spring race was much more mundane, paying only $6,525 total.
Still, a crowd of 17,000 showed up to watch.
Roberts
collected $1,890 for the win, and only 10 of the 28 starters earned more than
$100.
The
multi-car ownership numbers actually were higher here than in the next decade
or two, with three factory Fords (officially Pete DePaolo
Engineering), three Hugh Babb Chevys, two Bill Stroppe
Mercurys and two Petty Engineering Oldsmobiles, the second driven by Ralph Earnhardt, Dale’s
dad and Junior’s granddaddy. Twenty-eight cars started (the bigger fall race
would draw 48).
Observations - The races “back then” were much less competitive,
paid much less and were seen by far fewer fans. NASCAR enjoyed a “Golden Age”
from the mid-1990s until just after the economic crash of 2008, not even two
decades, and things have been sliding back ever since. Nevertheless, NASCAR
remains more popular and lucrative (for somebody) than it was at some point
around 20-25 years back.
Was
it just a fad that’s run its course - the Beanie Babies of the sports world?
Was it a successful concern wrecked by bad management? Was it just the victim
of an economy that won’t stop punishing its core fans?
Was
it the Chase, the Car of Tomorrow, the charter system, DW/MW on TV, the
departure of cigarette smoke? Are people just crabby and complaining about
everything these days?
Maybe
it was a little bit of all that, but the more important question is how to prop
things back up and at least halt the decline. In an article the other day Monte
Dutton, after talking about how much more fun Texas Motor Speedway had been
when things were going wrong there, concluded, “Get rid of smooth, and add lots
of bumpy, and it would fix a lot of what’s wrong in the NASCAR of today.”
I
think Dutton might have something. NASCAR has gotten too sterile. The cars all
look like their paint jobs alone cost more than Langhorne’s purse in 1957, and
they still all look pretty much alike, too. Where’s the scrambling owner-driver
for the underdog-loving crowd to cheer? Where are the stories behind the
drivers or the owners?
That’s
not the whole story, but it’s a start. Bring back personality, in the drivers, owners, cars and tracks, and you give
people something for their emotions. Let go of the corporate stranglehold.
Paul Sawyer wasn’t about flash and glitz
- even if there was a little P.T. Barnum in his back pocket - but he made a
race fan out of this writer, and today’s NASCAR movers and shakers could learn
a little (or a lot) from his example.