Little Joe, Junior, Gentleman Ned and Mr. Modified on Fairgrounds Dirt
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Richmond (Not International) Raceway doesn’t
make a big deal of its longevity anymore; there’s no “xxth
Annual” before the Federated Auto Parts 400 name. I had to look it up, and the
first fall race was run in 1959 (there was one Richmond race per year in 1953
and ‘55-58; none in ‘54), so this year’s is the 59th.
I can’t personally take you all the way back to the
beginning, when Cotton Owens bested a 16-car field in the Capital City 200 on
September 13, 1959 (Richmonder Runt Harris finished
fifth in Junie Donlavey’s #90). What I can do, though, is take you back to the
fifth annual race, which was up to 300 laps by then, and which was my
second-ever stock car race, on Sunday, September 8, 1963. It was still a
half-mile dirt track then.
Race #1 had been that spring’s Richmond 250, and it
hooked me on this sport forever. For some reason, though, finances were cut for
the fall and instead of sitting in the fourth-turn bleachers, I was in the
infield. (At least I ended up with less dirt and tire dust covering me than I’d
collected off turn four.)
The spring race had been notable for a race-long duel
between Joe Weatherly, who won, and Junior Johnson, who blew up and crashed
with seven laps to go. Weatherly and car owner Bud Moore had switched from
Pontiac to Mercury since then, but Johnson was still in Ray Fox’s fast but
fragile Holly Farms Poultry Chevy #3.
Joe Weatherly, #8 (above), and Junior Johnson, #3
(below), helped make this writer a lifelong race fan. (Notice that Weatherly’s
car has a license plate!)
Weatherly took the pole, but Johnson was a disappointing
13th - no one else outside the top 10 had the remotest chance of winning. As it
turned out, the #3 lasted only 62 laps and finished next-to-last.
“Little Joe,” on the other hand, had a rocket, and the
Norfolk racer lead 145 of the first 165 laps, but then the #8’s engine gave up
the ghost, and the home-state faithful sank lower in their seats. Little did we
know that, by the time NASCAR came to town again in 1964, Weatherly would be
dead.
Rex White picked up the leader’s mantle after Weatherly’s
misfortune, but after controlling the event for nearly 100 laps, he faded, and
Ned Jarrett ended up winning by two laps over White’s #4 Chevy. It was
Gentleman Ned’s only Richmond win, although he probably spent more time there
in subsequent years than anyone else in the field, because of his broadcast career.
Ray Hendrick |
It also was a little consolation to Virginians, because
Jarrett’s Burton-Robinson Construction Company Ford #11 was a Virginia-owned
team (although I think it was maintained at Ned’s shop in North Carolina). Fifth place went to Fred Lorenzen, although he was 11
laps off the lead. Freddie only ran a handful of dirt races in NASCAR (none
after 1963), but Richmond was his most frequent stop (and how Dog Track
Speedway in Moyock, N.C., got onto the list I have no earthly idea). Of more interest to me was the seventh place finisher,
Ray Hendrick, who would become my short-track idol in the years to come.
Driving a two-year-old Pontiac for an outfit called Rebel Racing, he ran the
last couple of laps with a flat tire - pretty much no tire at all by the end - and
I was much impressed by his ability to keep up speed on three wheels. Little
did I know just how good a driver Mr. Hendrick in fact was. |
It definitely wasn’t as exciting a race as the 250 had
been in the spring, and my guy didn’t win, but it was more than enough to
ensure that racing’s talons weren’t giving up their hold on this fan. I had the
next spring’s race marked on my calendar (and little did I know that it would
be victimized by rain and be completed “under the lights” on Tuesday night).
A
note on scheduling: The Capital City 300 was Race #47 of
55 making up the 1963’s schedule, which had actually begun in November of 1962.
The last ‘63 race was on the Riverside road course on November 3, and the next
weekend a 250-lapper at Concord, N.C., began the 1964 season, which included
three other races actually run in 1963, one in Savannah, Ga., on December 29!
Got that?
This race - that’s eventual winner Fireball Roberts in
the #22 - was run on the ill-fated Augusta, Ga., road course in November of
1963 but was part of the 1964 NASCAR Grand National schedule.
(Editor’s
Note: The old road course at Augusta wasn’t the only one to be ill-fated here.
This was Fireball’s last win, and he would suffer severe burns in a fiery crash
at Charlotte the next spring. Forty days later, on July 2, 1964, we said a sad
goodbye to E. Glenn Roberts.)
That’s just another example. When you see weird things
coming out of Daytona Beach these days, don’t assume it’s because the current
generation of “suits” somehow took perfection and ran it into the ground.
History says it’s in the genes.
Frank’s Loose Lugnuts (Don’t fine me; it was an
accident, I swear. I tightened every one of them.)
While wandering online looking for photos and statistics,
I stumbled across materials from one of the late model races run annually on
Easter Monday at Trico (now Orange County) Speedway in North Carolina. Easter
Monday was a state holiday in those days, so a daytime race on a Monday wasn’t
quite as weird as it sounds. Besides, with nothing else going on, you could
draw an interesting field.
Bobby Allison, then at the peak of his GN/Cup career, was
a frequent visitor and won the race, and top late model drivers from all over
joined him at what was then a pretty run-down facility. I used to have a photo
I took at one race of Ray Hendrick blowing an engine and sailing over the
first-turn guardrail, taking Tommy Houston and South Carolinian Jerry Rector
with him. Rector landed upside-down in the pond dating back to the raceway’s
dirt track days and was actually in a little peril.
I mention this because those were the days when local
racers regularly toured other tracks for big races. Although this still happens
in sprint car, modified and dirt-track late model racing, it has virtually died
out at NASCAR tracks, and that’s one reason “new blood” racers with
pre-existing name recognition and fan appeal no longer show up at NASCAR’s top
levels. It’s killing the sport, and the idiots still haven’t lifted a finger to
change the status quo - guess it’s easier to constantly fiddle with the rules
or point system and then claim you’ve done your job.