Full Throttle

During the second half of the 1969 NASCAR Grand National season, Dodge rolled out the Daytona, a massive shark-nosed machine that featured an addition that looked like something out of the recent Hollywood hit, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a giant rear wing that rose two feet above the rear deck lid.

The problem Dodge and Plymouth faced during the 1969 NASCAR season was that the bodywork of their current production cars were obstinately the opposite of aerodynamic.

They all had blunt front grilles and some had deeply tunneled rear windows that broke up the air as it tumbled off the roof. In fact, aerodynamically speaking, the worst of all the cars Mopar was building at the time was the Dodge Charger — the very car whose sales would most likely benefit from some NASCAR success.

Dodge first tried to clean up the Charger by creating the Charger 500. It was a subtly smoothed version of the same car but with a flat nose and a rear window moved flush with the roofline. But the Charger 500 was only a half step forward and not particularly successful.

So midway through ‘69, Dodge took the Charger 500, added a long, shark-like nose and planted a 23-in.-high wing on its tail. The result was the Charger Daytona, a car that cut through the air with stunning ease and remained stable even at 200 mph.

In fact, during testing at Talladega on March 24, 1970, Buddy Baker became the first driver to turn a lap at more than 200 mph in the 426 Hemi-powered No. 88 Daytona.

The Charger Daytona won its first race (the inaugural Talladega 500 in 1969) and was the primary ride for Bobby Isaac during his successful run for the 1970 Championship.

Building on that success, in 1970 Chrysler applied the Daytona formula to the Plymouth Road Runner to create the 1970 Superbird.

In 1970, under pressure from superstar Richard Petty, Chrysler produced a sister car, the Plymouth Superbird. The introduction of the Superbird saw the rise of a new NASCAR star, Pete Hamilton.

Richard Petty took a chance on Hamilton putting him in the #40 Superbird and it paid off big time as he became a Super Speedway sensation.

Unquestionably, Pete Hamilton’s greatest victory came in 1970 when he won the Daytona 500 in the Petty Enterprises #40 Superbird. He won twice more at both Talladega races in 1970 and got his fourth and final super speedway win at the July race at Daytona driving for Cotton Owens. He also won a Daytona 125 qualifier in 1971.

Hamilton’s exploits aside, the season belonged to Bobby Isaac who drove the #71 K&K Insurance Nord Krauskopf owned Dodge in 47 races to 28 top ten finishes and 11 victories and his only Grand National Championship.

Isaac’s finish to a great season came at Talladega when he broke Buddy Baker’s 200 MPH record, also set in a Dodge Daytona, Isaac’s speed was 201.104 MPH.

For Petty’s part, save for losing the championship to Isasc, it was a vintage year as he won 9 poles and 18 events including 27 top fives and 31 top tens to finish in forth place for the season despite starting 7 less events than Issac.

The following year, the wing became extinct due to new NASCAR restrictions, but was soon replaced by a feature that lasted nearly 40 years - the rear spoiler.

Chrysler’s glorious winged cars only raced competitively for about a season and a half in NASCAR. But their radical appearance, instant on-track success, and sheer audacity produced an indelible and enduring image.

However, as thrilling as the Charger Daytona and Superbird were on the racetrack, they were mere specks on the sales charts—homologation specials few people wanted to live with every day. So NASCAR effectively outlawed the winged wonders going into the 1971 season by restricting their engine size and increased homologation requirements so that no manufacturer would ever be so daring again.

Other 1970 notes:

Pete Hamilton’s cruises to victory in the Alabama 500 at Talladega as ABC Sports televises the second half of the race live to a nationwide audience. The network squeezes the three hour and 17 minute race into a 90-minute time slot.

David Pearson scores his first win of the season in the Rebel 400 at Darlington. Richard Petty is injured when his Plymouth flips on the front chute. ABC Sports picks up live coverage a few minutes before Petty’s crash. Short grainy video here.

Restrictor plates make their first appearance in August at Michigan International Speedway. Charlie Glotzbach drives a winged Dodge Daytona to victory under the caution flag.

The final dirt-track race in NASCAR Grand National history is run at State Fairgrounds Speedway in Raleigh, N.C. Richard Petty wins in a Don Robertson-owned Plymouth.

Legendary NASCAR driver Curtis Turner perishes in a private plane crash in Pennsylvania. Bobby Isaac finishes first in the 250-miler at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

All the posts in this series can be read here.