Full Throttle

Can we (we meaning ink-stained wretches) all just forget about making the lame Busch - Intimidator comparisons? I’m getting bored stupid seeing my reader fill up with gazillion headlines all touting the same line of tripe.

If Kyle Busch puts the slightest scratch on his right rear quarter panel on his way to a win at Darlington I fully expect the next tsunami of headlines will be Busch - King Richard comparisons. Petty pretty much patented the Darlington Stripe in the mid to late sixties.

While on the subject of ink-stained wretches, did you know Darlington may have been the only sport venue in the country where the press box filled up from the back row forward.

Until 1966 the Darlington press box provided the nation’s motor-sports writers with a unique opportunity to prove their collective family jewel size. The box was situated precariously on thin stilts just outside the first-turn guardrail. The closest reporters were no more than 20 feet from the top of the metal strips that were generously called “guardrails.”

Note I said until 1966. That year Earl Balmer (pictured above) gave everyone, ink stained or otherwise something to ponder.

Balmer had the reputation of a hard charger, who drove more with his foot than his head. As one pitside observer said: “He’ll jam that car into the corner as deep as it’ll go, and if he makes it through the turn, he figures he can jam it in a little deeper the next time around.”

Needless to say he didn’t make it through turn one that year. While running down the main straight, his car was tapped from behind; Balmer lost control and climbed the guardrail. It is generally agreed that he came within a whisker of falling outside the track and collapsing the press-box supports.

After that the press box picked up the name “Balmer’s Box” and was the only one on the circuit that remained virtually empty on race day.

Quotes on the Darlington Stripe: Fireball Roberts once said of turns 3-4, (now 1-2) “If you could put roller skates on the side of your car, this turn would be perfect.”

“No one really wanted to hit the rail, but you had to drive as though it wasn’t there,” said Pete Hamilton. “You usually got it with the right rear first. You would hit and never get off the gas. It was so quick—just a whap. Geez, the first time for me it sounded like the car had fallen apart. I thought I had destructed. It would go blrrp because the sections of the rail overlap and it was like you’d run a stick across a picket fence.”

That Lady in Black bites:

In 1964, Darel Dieringer spun in the first turn of the first lap, sending about half the field every which way, then spun again in the third turn of the same lap, a record. “Gawdamn,” said Dieringer, who does not like to be reminded. “Everybody thought I was drunk.”

Bobby Allison once called the track a “witch” after an unusual accident that was caused by apparently nothing at all. “At other tracks I might feel like running a short-track race on the way home,” he said, “but when this race is over, I don’t feel like doing anything.” And Buddy Baker added, “You got to be a genius just to drive into the pits.”

Richard Petty: “I’ll tell you, a lot more races are lost on this track than are ever won. On most tracks, you’ve got a margin for error; here you’re on the edge all the time. You’re so close, you slide just a little and you watch the rest of the race from the pits. “It’s like a road course. It’s more fun to drive alone than in traffic. You don’t race the other drivers, you run against the track.”

And finally on the tracks weird pear shaped configuration: “We built the track the way we did because that’s the way it came out.” - Barney Wallace one of the original group of investors in Darlington.

And the final “finally,” a Darlington Tribute and Camp Darlington.

An addendum to the final “finally:” Swervin’ Irvan and Ken Schrader make the top ten list of Stupidest Moments in NASCAR History at the 1990 TranSouth 500 at Darlington.

Technorati Tags: Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, Auto racing, Dale Earnhardt, Buddy Baker, Darel Dieringer, NASCAR, Darlington Raceway

Don’t ask stupid questions.

It had four wheels, they were attached to a tin-top and they made revolutions around an oval who the hell do ya think rolled into Southside Speedway Thursday night and rolled out with the trophy?

None other than Kyle The Desperado Busch that’s who.

He not only won, but in true Desperado fashion, he not only won but stole the event named after Denny Hamlin as the events namesake could do no better than third in the Denny Hamlin 175 Late Model Race.

The race was the first event to benefit Hamlin’s new foundation, formed to aid the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and other child-oriented charities.

Busch turned the fastest qualifying lap and donated the $100 prize to the foundation as well. Busch started seventh under Southside’s starting-grid system.

Bobby Allison was also on hand to serve as grand marshal for the full-house event.

Busch took the lead for good on lap 116 on the 333 mile asphalt oval and steadily pulled away from second-place Chris Hopkins. Eddie Johnson finished third, Denny Hamlin fourth, Roy Hendrick fifth and former Cup, Busch and NCTS driver Curtis Markham sixth.

Technorati Tags: Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Bobby Allison, Southside Speedway

(NOTE: This is another in a series of posts on the “Good Old Days” of NASCAR, this week Talladega and the State of Alabama take center stage.)

Far from common belief NASCAR had a presence in Alabama far in advance of when today’s super speedway first opened at Talladega in 1969.

Pictured left is Lakeville Speedway (Mobile, Ala) - 1951 April Red Harrelson’s Ford and Tim Flock’s Oldsmobile are on the front row for the start of the April 8 Grand National event at Lakeview. Fonty Flock pulled double-duty in this 150-lap event on the 5/8-mile dirt track, acting as the event promoter, and finishing second to ­winner Tim Flock. The rain-plagued race was postponed from March 18 and was hampered by additional rains in April. The track surface broke up badly during the race.

In November the same year Frank Mundy throttles his Studebaker to a win in the 150-lap finale at Lakeview Speedway. Bob Flock crashes his Oldsmobile in the early laps and suffers a broken neck. Herb Thomas wraps up the tightly contested NASCAR Grand National champion­ship chase by nosing out Fonty Flock by 146.2 points.

Now known as Birmingham International Speedway the Birmingham Fairgrounds Speedway first opened in 1906 as a 1 mile dirt oval and has had several incarnations since. (Note: BIR is holding the 100-lap Davey Allison Memorial this Saturday night.)

The first NASCAR event was won by Fireball Roberts at the wheel of a ‘57 Chevy in 1958. Three years later only 13 cars started with Ned Jarrett leading the small field of tight finishers in the event. The ‘63 NASCAR season opened at Birmingham in Nov ‘62 with Jim Paschal the winner and a second event that year had Richard Perry win with another short field of 16 starters.

The final event at Birmingham took place on June 8, 1968. Richard Petty dominates the 100-mile event. David Pearson finishes third but is disqualified for using improper tires.

Chisholm Speedway, Montgomery, AL, held a single Cup event in 1956 and won by Buck Baker in a 1956 Chrysler owned by the legendary Carl Kiekhaefer.

Buck Baker was number one driver for the Kiekhaefer team. Baker entered 44 events, with 14 wins, 12 poles, and 35 Top-10 finishes on his way to the team’s second consecutive NASCAR championship.

(Special note to the multi-team haters of today, Kiekhaefer had nine drivers race for him in the 56 event 1956 season, taking first, second, third, and ninth in the final series points. The drivers combined for 30 wins, 25 poles, and 92 Top-10 finishes in their 126 races. Four drivers combined for 16 straight team wins between March 25 and June 3.)

Dixie Speedway, Birmingham, AL also held a single event in 1960 with Ned Jarrett scoring the win in his self-owned Courtesy Ford ahead of Richard and Lee Petty. Maurice Petty finished eighth in the third Petty Enterprises entry.

Huntsville Speedway, Huntsville, AL. Still in operation today the track hosted a single NASCAR event, the Rocket City 200, on the paved 1/4 mile in August 1962 with Richard Petty winning by a lap over Bob Welborn, Jim Paschal, Buck Baker and Ned Jarrett. The field also featured a very young modified driver by the name of Bobby Allison.

Bobby and Donnie Allison cut their teeth in racing at Huntsville, along with several other drivers that went on to fame, including Red Farmer, Darrell Waltrip, Neil Bonnett, Jimmy “Smut” Means and Davey Allison.

Which brings us to the site of this weekends event Talladega. Originally the place was called Alabama International Motor Speedway.

“I’ve been going there since before they even opened the place,” says Bobby Allison, four-time Dega race winner and leader of the fabled Alabama Gang. “You hear people talking about a curse, and you think, well, that’s just silly. But then when you start listing everything that has gone on down there, you start thinking maybe there’s something to that deal.”

The Curse, if there is one, may have been born along with the speedway itself. The first running of a NASCAR event was wracked with controversy over speeds obtained at the new track, tires that were highly suspect in their ability to withstand those speeds and finally all the big name drivers walking out of the place in protest. That left the unheralded Richard Brickhouse and his winged Dodge Daytona to score his first and only Cup victory. (Tom Higgins provides an excellent re-cap of that weekends events)

Talledega has been the site of many records over the years the first of which occurred on March 24, 1970. Buddy Baker guided the Chrysler Engineering #88 Dodge Daytona (pictured left) to a closed course speed record of 200.447 MPH, becoming the first stock car driver to officially exceed the magic 200 MPH mark.

(NOTE: For those with an interest, this is an excellence source on the #88 and it’s sister car Charlie Glotzbach qualified on the pole for the ‘69 Talladega event [199.466 MPH] that was negated by the walk-out. Included are images of the #88’s restoration from a rusting hulk found in the woods to original condition.)

The 1973 event brought carnage in both bent sheet metal and broken bodies.

“To me, what took place in ‘73 was bigger than big,” said BuddyBaker. “Most of the drivers racing that day had never been in anything like it.

“The wreck happened with such suddeness that it was like opening a closet door and having a tiger jump out on you. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the caution light flash on, but there was no time to react to it. Then it was just chaos.”

The chaos started early, the 10th lap, and resulted in a massive 21-car pole-up. No fatalities occurred but it left Wendell Scott, Earl Brooks, Joe Frasson and Slick Gardner with injuries ranging from minor to serious. The most serious being that of Wendell Scott who suffered a cracked pelvis, three broken ribs and a lacerated arm. The loss of his race car also left him almost ruined financially and his career - in effect - was over.

The late Benny Parsons offered his description: “For some reason I thought it had been only a one car incident, or maybe two. But coming off turn two I saw the biggest mess of my career on a race track. It looked like a 747 jetliner had crashed.”

David Pearson steered clear of a mess and went on to an easy win with only 17 cars in the 60-car starting field finishing.

Of all the records set on the Alabama high banks there’s one that likely will stand forever.

In 1987, Bill Elliott established a world stock-car record when he posted a speed of 212.809 mph. in qualifying for the Aaron’s 499. The speeds attained that year and Bobby Allison’s horrific accident where he nearly went into the crowd and also taking out the flagman’s stand led to the implementation of restrictor plate racing at Talladega and Daytona. (see video)

Two serious crashes marred the running of the 1993 DieHard 500. On the 70th lap of the race, Jimmy Horton gets tapped going into Turn 1, flipping over on the banking and going completely over the wall (see video), the only time that has ever happened at Talladega (The only catchfences in place at the time were in front of the grandstands.)

As a result of this incident, fences were put around the remainder of the track). Stanley Smith is critically injured in the same crash. Later in the race, Neil Bonnett, in his first stock car race since 1990, goes for a wild ride, flipping end over end in the tri-oval. Neil was uninjured,and joined the CBS commentary team to call the end of the race,which was a close duel between Dale Earnhardt and Ernie Irvan,with Earnhardt prevailing by .005 second.

Other notable events:

August 20, 1971: Paula Murphy, “Miss STP“ made a then record closed course run for a female at 171.499 mph.

August 9, 1975: Mark Donohue set a closed-course world record at 221.160 mph. It would stand as a world record for four years, and as a United States record until 1986.

November 26, 1985: Lyn St. James sets a record closed course run for a female, at over 200 mph.

In the 1986 Winston 500, the entire field of cars qualified at over 200 mph. Future greats such as Mark Martin and Alan Kulwicki failed to make the field. Before the race even got a chance to start, a drunk fan climbed into the pace car and took it for a few hot laps around the track, before being stopped by police and track workers. Bill Elliott had the car to beat early on, but on the last lap, Bobby Allison beat out Dale Earnhardt in a closely contested finish.

December 14, 1989: Patty Moise sets a record closed course run for a female at 216.607 mph, driving a Buick.

June 10, 2004: Rusty Wallace tests a stock car without a restrictor plate for then series sponsor Nextel to test communication capabilities, and hits a speed over 228 mph (367 km/h) on the straights (some reports say the speeds were close to 235 mph, and 221 mph average speed for the lap.

Technorati Tags: Bobby Allison, Talladega, Ned Jarrett, Fonty Flock, Alabama International Motor Speedway