Looking Back to Look Forward
|
|
There
are some races from the early years of my NASCAR fandom that stick out for
various reasons as particularly memorable, and I thought maybe a look back at
those might shed light on why my memories of those events are so much more
positive than for many of today’s seemingly much more competitive Cup events.
For
this little experiment, I chose the 1966 Peach Blossom 500 at North Carolina
Motor Speedway in Rockingham. This was Rockingham’s second Grand National
event, and using the year is redundant, because that was the only year the
spring event carried the “Peach Blossom” name.
One thing you learn early as a journalist is
that “first annual” is NEVER correct – it’s not “annual” until it has been held
more than once. In this case, there was no “second annual,” which proves that
point.
So
here’s the scenario: Paul Goldsmith, driving a year-old Ray Nichols Plymouth
won the event by nearly four seconds over Cale Yarborough in Banjo Matthews’
Ford, and they were the only cars on the lead lap.
Bobby
Allison in Betty Lilly’s “independent” Ford was third, 12 laps back, but that
put him 8 laps ahead of fourth and 10 ahead of fifth. Virginia’s memorable
part-timer Worth McMillion finished 48 laps behind in 10th. (McMillion
was memorable in part because, in a sport with current and former moonshiners,
he worked for the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.)
The Winner. (Clipping from the former Southern MotorSports Journal via the always-worth-reading TMC Chase)
Thirteen
of the 44 starters finished the race, which lasted five seconds less than
exactly FIVE HOURS!
So
what made the Peach Blossom 500 so great?
Try
this: There were quite a few lead changes in the Rockingham race – Yarborough
and Jim Paschal had one particularly memorable side-by-side duel – but there
also were long periods during those five hours when nothing much was happening
up front.
This
is where being there in person makes a difference. Plenty was going on back in
the field. There were occasional battles for positions and other drama: one
Grand National part-timer, in a nice-looking new ride, smacked the fence in the
third and fourth turns three times, a bit harder each time, until the last
contact totaled the car – all this happened before the race’s halfway mark.
In
those days, mechanical failure was more common among top runners, and watching
those favorites struggle maintained interest. Bobby Isaac, in Junior Johnson’s
Ford, took the lead from pole-sitter Goldsmith on lap 25, then wrecked 10 laps
later. Ned Jarrett retired with engine failure at almost the same time, and
less than 20 laps later Darel Dieringer, in Richard Petty’s car (see
explanation below), wrecked. LeeRoy Yarbrough, Goldsmith’s teammate Sam McQuagg, and Holman-Moody teammates Dick Hutcherson and
Fred Lorenzen were all gone before the halfway mark. All but Hutcherson had
taken a turn at leading the race.
You didn’t see Lorenzen wreck often, but
Rockingham was a brutal place to race for 500 laps
Paschal
was the next to go (engine), but there were still several strong contenders in
this battle of attrition, including Wood Brothers teammates Marvin Panch and
Curtis Turner. Then the latter crashed with 124 laps to go, and the former lost
an engine 26 laps later. In the meantime, David Pearson’s Cotton Owens Dodge
made an extended pit stop that removed him from contention.
That
left it to Goldsmith and Yarborough, who between them would end up leading
two-thirds of the race, and it was former motorcycle racer (and Indy driver) Goldsmith
who prevailed.
So
it was a pretty good race up front, but maybe an even more interesting one away
from the lead, and that’s what I pick out of all this to bring forward to
today.
“Big John” Sears was just getting his nearly
decade-long Grand National career underway that day at Rockingham, and he would
go on to post the first of his 48 Top-5 finishes, albeit 22 miles behind winner
Goldsmith. Sears’ car owner L.G. DeWitt also was an investor in the speedway,
which advertised on the car at Daytona two weeks earlier.
I’m
not sure the “things to watch” away from the lead are as good today as they
were 50 years ago, but I know that, because most fans are watching on TV and
not in person, they don’t really have the opportunity to see any of that,
regardless. As we all know, most of TV race coverage is of the lead (long-time
fans complain about this continuously), so when that’s not the point of
excitement on the track, why watch at all?
It’s
a two-stage problem: TV limits how much of the overall racing a fan can
experience, and modern rules – especially aero-related – make it harder to pass
for the lead or elsewhere. The result is that all the cars are running on the
lead lap – much closer together than in 1966 – but they can’t pass one another
as much, so the excitement is reduced.
When
I compare 1966 and 2019, that’s what I get, and it takes me back to my
oft-yelled prescription for better racing today: dumb down and slow down the
cars, eliminate aero as the major factor it has become, and watch people pass
each other more, creating more exciting racing.
Frank’s
Loose Lug Nuts
The
Richard Petty Rockingham Story
Richard
Petty was replaced in the field for the Peach Blossom 500 because he had
undergone surgery to repair torn ligaments in his left hand that had been
injured in a touch football game. Dieringer was his replacement for the race. See
more details here:
It’s
particularly interesting – and different from today – that the Petty pit crew
moved to Jim Paschal’s pit after Dieringer exited the
race early and offered their services to Petty’s former crew member. Paschal’s Friedkin Enterprises
Plymouth was a first-rate ride, but apparently its pit crew wasn’t up to the
standards of Petty’s team.
Richard with his football injury. Kyle Petty
was quarterback at Randleman H.S. about a decade later, but both probably made
the right career choices.
Riding
the Rails
This
also was the first of several races I attended at Rockingham via a unique
promotion where the Seaboard Coastline Railroad added cars to its overnight
train to Florida and picked up race fans from Washington to Raleigh and
delivered them to the track, which was across the highway from the train
tracks. Lifelong friend Dave Fulton tells the
story of that 1966 adventure better than I ever could.
Although I can’t pick myself out of the crowd
anymore, that crowd standing at the start-finish line for as Paul Goldsmith
took the Peach Blossom 500 checkered flag includes this writer.
Jayski
Like
a lot of you, I was saddened by Jayski’s Silly Season
being dropped from ESPN’s website last week. My guess is that I’ve accessed
that site somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 times over the last two decades,
and I’ll miss it.
I’m
glad that Race Fans Forever has stepped in to fill part of that void,
though, offering links to many of
the websites whose articles Jayski linked over the years. Please use
it and keep informed.
Jay,
thanks for a lot of good reading.