The Modern Era, Thirty Years Back
Remember when Winston Cup ran at South
Boston, VA? Thompson, CT? Hickory, NC? Trenton, NJ?
Probably not.
Remember when Winston Cup budgets topped
out at only $100,000 to $150,000? Remember when teams only had about twelve
crewman total and multi-car teams were rare?
Probably not. After all, thirty years is a
long time. But by historical standards it is merely last month. And thirty years
ago, NASCAR began what it known as its Modern Era.
When Winston entered the sport as series
sponsor, their promotions only targeted races that were considered
"major" events, with distances of 250 miles or more. As a result, over
a third of the 1971 season’s events, all on short tracks, were not promoted by
Winston though they were part of the points race. Winston wanted a more compact
schedule than the 46-50 races that the Grand National series historically
featured.
For 1972 Big Bill France, the founder of
NASCAR, retired as the sanctioning body’s president, and handed the keys of the
sanctioning body over to Bill Junior. France Sr. remained with the family’s
track owning arm, International Speedway Corporation and hammered out a massive
change in NASCAR’s top division. The Grand National series was shaved to 31
events, all major races – the Riverside road course had two events, there were
nine short track events (two each at Richmond, Bristol, North Wilkesboro, and
Martinsville, plus a late-August night race at Nashville), and twenty events on
superspeedways (two each at Daytona, Rockingham, Atlanta, Darlington, Talladega,
Charlotte, Dover, Michigan, and Texas, and solo dates at Ontario and Trenton).
The myriad 100-150 milers were placed in the new Grand National East series.
NASCAR also began awarding up-front appearance
monies to top teams to run the full schedule, a precursor to the Winner’s Circle
program that officially launched in 1975-6. It also slapped a serious
restriction on other tobacco companies sponsoring cars in Winston Cup – a
restriction that lasted until 1981.
The point system was also changed. During
the 1970 and ’71 seasons numerous independent drivers parked out of races after
starting, unhappy with the lack of purse monies at the bottom of the running
order. NASCAR changed its point system to stop this. Race winners received 100
points with a two-point drop per position, and bonus points per completed laps –
a quarter point on short tracks, half point on one-milers, 0.7 points at
Darlington, three-quarters of a point on the 1.5 milers, one full point at
Michigan and Texas, and 1.25 points at Riverside, Daytona, Ontario, and
Talladega. Such a system made parking out suicide, as teams would have to run
all the laps to get all the bonus points.
The focus of the 1971 season had been
Richard Petty, the ’71 champion, and Bobby Allison, fourth in ’71 points after a
frustrating first third but then a spectacular run with Holman-Moody Racing. In
the 1971 season Petty won seven of the first 15 races, but after Allison aligned
with Holman-Moody’s Mercuries the two engaged in weeks of ferocious competition;
in the season’s remaining 30 races Allison exploded to eleven wins, eight of
them on superspeedways, while Petty wrenched out fourteen wins, five on supers,
and the two blasted into each other more than once.
Holman-Moody disintegrated in a
parking-lot brawl between John Holman and Ralph Moody and Allison needed a new
ride for ’72. He had some $85,000 in Coca-Cola sponsorship money available; he
brought that plus another $15,000 in personal savings to Richard Howard, owner
of the Chevrolet team run by Junior Johnson. Herb Nab was the crew chief, and
handling the engines was an engine builder who’d worked with Allison at
Holman-Moody – Robert Yates. But a problem with communication promptly cropped
up in pre-season testing at Riverside; with Allison standing alongside Junior
Johnson would speak to Herb Nab – "Herb, tell Bobby we need to put a
different set of springs in the car before we test again."
Meanwhile, in mid-January came a lavish
press conference called by Andy Granatelli of the STP Corporation. The
conference announced Richard Petty as a driver and team running with STP
sponsorship. Petty’s #43 Plymouths sported STP red on the sides and Petty blue
up top, this after considerable wrangling over scheme details between the two. A
second Petty Mopar, the #11 Dodge driven by Buddy Baker, sported the full STP
red scheme.
Petty and Allison were two of the four
teams getting up-front appearance money; another was Bobby Isaac, in Nord
Krauskopf’s #71 Dodge wrenched by Harry Hyde. The top team running only a
limited schedule was the Wood Brothers, running A.J. Foyt in the first few
events of the season. James Hylton was the top independent, second in 1971
points.
In the season-opening Western 500, Foyt
had the pole, Petty timed second in his final race in an all-blue paint scheme,
and Bobby Allison timed a surprisingly poor 16th. Foyt and Petty dueled in the
first six laps but at Lap Seven Allison took over. Foyt fell out with
transmission failure while running second. Allison led 100 laps but after Lap
110 a valve spring weakened and finally broke, and Petty shot away to win by
over a minute as fog cut the race 100 miles short. Finishing 28th with a failed
radiator was David Pearson, driving Bud Moore’s Ford as Moore was returning to
NASCAR after a very successful road-racing hiatus.
Speedweeks was next. Bobby Isaac won the
500 pole with A.J. Foyt second, Buddy Baker in the part-time Petty #11 Dodge
third, Allison fourth, and Petty fifth. Isaac and the two Petty Mopars were
lined up in the first 125 qualifier. James Hylton blew his engine after eleven
laps and the yellow flew. After the restart David Ray Boggs blew a tire; popular
independant veteran Raymond "Friday" Hassler shot right and hit the
backstretch wall trying to avoid. His Chevrolet spun down the back straight amid
a few other cars, but over four seconds later Jimmy Crawford center-punched
through Hassler’s right side as Joe Frasson, Raymond Williams, and others
arrived and crashed. Hassler was dead at the scene.
Isaac and Baker dueled in the race but
Baker burned a valve while Petty broke a fuel pump, and Isaac cruised to a 44
second win, his third in the qualifiers. Bobby Allison overpowered Foyt by six
seconds in the second Twin but was disconsolate over Hassler’s death. "This
ruins my day," he said. "Friday was one of the best people I’ve ever
known in racing."
Bill Dennis won the Sportsman 300 in a
Junie Donlavey Mercury, but the 500 belonged to Foyt. Isaac’s Dodge gagged on
the start and fell out after 19 laps; Allison led two laps then limped home on
seven cylinders. Petty and Baker ripped through the field from Row 16 but Baker
was slammed by Walter Ballard, who rode onto his roof off Four and tumbled a
couple of times in the tri-oval grass. Petty and Foyt fought it out for 60 laps
but Petty broke a valve spring and Foyt was home free.
Petty, Allison, and Isaac finished 1-2-3
at Richmond, while James Hylton had finished seventh, fifth, and sixth so far
and held a 6.75 point lead. At Ontario Foyt, Allison, Petty, Baker, and Isaac
timed in the top five and engaged in a spirited battle where the lead officially
changed 35 times. Isaac collided with Mark Donohue and slammed the wall after 45
laps – "the wreck was my fault," Isaac said despite nursing a bruised
collarbone – and Petty cut an air hose during a Lap 130 stop and lost a lap. He
nonetheless pushed Baker and Allison down Ontario’s long straights to battle
Foyt – "Foyt was ridiculously faster in the straights," Allison said.
"Petty got behind me and literally gave me a push to catch the draft of
Foyt." It wasn’t enough as Foyt took his seventh NASCAR win, though "I
didn’t handle myself well in traffic all day," he admitted.
At Rockingham Allison won the pole by over
three MPH over Isaac, but was sent to the rear for switching tires before the
start. Bobby led 277 laps and lapped the field but then blew up. Isaac won the
Carolina 500, only his third long-distance superspeedway win ever.
Junior Johnson was concerned enough about
the engine failures that he had Robert Yates change to Union aviation oil for
the Atlanta 500. Allison won the pole and in the 500 led 137 laps while Isaac
led 136 laps and Petty led 31 laps before losing three laps to unscheduled
stops. Allison escaped disaster when rookie Larry Smith hit the second turn wall
on Lap 63 and Ron Keselowski nailed Smith; Allison narrowly escaped as
Keselowski dove into a ditch and flipped into a chain-link fence. He gagged on
the Lap 266 restart and was seven seconds behind with 30 to go, but A.J. Foyt
and Isaac went at it for the lead and Allison overhauled them and won by two
lengths.
The Allison express monopolized the
Southeastern 500 at Bristol and with the win took the point lead over James
Hylton. Petty and Isaac howled in protest over the Chevrolet’s wedge head engine
allowing a larger carburetor opening – "That Chevy is supposed to win"
(Isaac); "NASCAR has jacked the rules so much to help that Chevy
(Petty)." But Bobby broke a sway bar at Darlington and finished seventh.
The Rebel 400 was won by a driver declared career-dead – David Pearson, now
driving the Wood Brothers Mercury. "I knew when I got the ride that I could
count on two wins, just because they’re the Wood Brothers," Pearson said.
"They’re the best in the business."
Allison and Isaac fought it out for almost
the entire Gwyn Staley 400 at North Wilkesboro. Petty didn’t challenge until the
final 100 laps, but on his final stop "we put on gumballs (soft compound
tires) and that probably made the difference." Allison edged Isaac for
second and admitted, "Petty was ready to run at the end and we weren’t
quite right." Isaac led 268 laps at Martinsville but blew up; Allison lost
seven laps changing brake shoes, and Petty lost a cylinder, "but I could
make up (in the turns) because I was going into them slower." As a result
when David Pearson broke his transmission with 30 to go Petty had a seven lap
margin of victory.
James Hylton had retaken the point lead at
Darlington but at the Winston 500 at Talladega he crashed. Isaac, Pearson,
Baker, and Petty fought it out while Bobby Allison blew up after 34 laps and
Fred Lorenzen, making a comeback in NASCAR, led four laps in Hoss Ellington’s
Ford. Petty cut a tire with 15 to go and lost a lap, but finished fifth and took
the point lead as Isaac was waylaid into the wall by Jimmy Crawford and Pearson
grabbed the win.
Allison by now was making a shambles of
the season’s lap-leader stats and proceeded to do so again at his car owner’s
Memorial Day classic. Allison had won both Charlotte races in the Holman-Moody
Mercury the year before and from Lap 122 on in the ’72 600 looked unbeatable.
But with thirty to go both right side tires went down and Buddy Baker took the
win in the #11 Petty Dodge, 24 seconds ahead of Allison. "I feel sorry for
Bobby," Baker said. "I know how he feels. It’s happened to me so many
times."
Allison promptly whipped the field at
Dover, finished sixteen seconds behind David Pearson in the Michigan 400, and
finished sixth at Riverside. Richard Petty and James Hylton, though, were still
1-2 in points, and Hylton closed to 41.2 markers after Petty blew up at
Riverside. Petty cleaned house at Texas World Speedway amid 100-plus degree
temperatures. Allison finished second, Isaac fifth after nursing a souring
engine home at the finish, and Hylton was sixth. As a result, Hylton was only 59
and change behind Petty in points. "I can’t believe he’s that close,"
Petty said afterward. "I should be the point champion….James should be
the lap champion. That’s the difference. Actually, I admire him because he’s
figured out a way to beat the system. I really think NASCAR needs to look at the
point system."
Hylton, for his part, pointed out that
"I didn’t make the rules about the points, I just run for them. If I had
the money the other top guys had, I could afford to run to win, too. But I
don’t. I pay my own bills and have to make sure I earn enough money to go to the
next race." A modest sponsorship from Pop Kola helped the driver who’d
helped wrench Ned Jarrett to a title and who’d finished second in points three
times.
Despite the success, Allison was not being
spoken to directly by Junior Johnson – "Herb, tell Bobby to meet me at
Richmond next week to test," Junior said to Herb Nab with Allison right
there. Finally, Allison went to Junior and to Nab and said, "Herb, tell
Junior to kiss my a$$." Junior now started to deal with Allison directly,
but the tension between the two wasn’t done.
David Pearson was back for the Firecracker
400. After Isaac broke another motor – "This stuff seems to happen all the
time now," the dejected Catawba, NC champion noted – the Firecracker became
a spirited Pearson-Petty-Allison battle. The two dueled over the final 25 laps
and Petty made a high-side stab on the last lap but came up eight feet short
with Allison three lengths back in third. Allison then cleaned house at Bristol,
leading all but 55 laps; the win moved him to second in points behind Petty,
with Hylton (fifth in the Firecracker but 12th at Bristol) now third.
For the Northern 300 at Trenton, Allison
brought a Chevrolet he’d built in his Hueytown, AL shops, and beat Isaac by just
over a second with Petty third. Bobby sold that particular Chevrolet to Hoss
Ellington and Fred Lorenzen raced it at Atlanta. Bobby for his part sweated out
the Dixie 500 – literally: "It’s been a hot summer and I like the
heat" – and took the win after Pearson’s engine soured.
But at Talladega attrition became a
dominator. Goodyear brought a new compound for fast qualifiers while independents
had year-old rubber. James Hylton used the year-old compound: "I was going
with the old tire anyway. I thought it would work better and it did."
Allison, Baker, and Petty battled in the first 20 laps but then Joe Frasson,
racing for the lead, blew a tire and spun into traffic, eliminating himself,
Bobby Isaac, Cecil Gordon, and Ron Keselowski. Petty caught damage and had to
limp home seventh. "These new tires Goodyear brought in weren’t worth a
damn," the enraged Frasson growled. Hylton took over and sweated out
attrition that eliminated 32 of 50 starters, beating rookie Ramo Stott by one
length. "This makes me feel good because I took a lot of abuse earlier in
the year for being so high up in the points." But he was now 210 behind
Petty, with Allison only 48.8 behind The King. Allison shaved more points by
winning at Nashville, despite the crumbling of the first turn surface before the
race.
At the Southern 500 Allison and Pearson
engaged in 300 miles of spirited competition – at one point Pearson passed
Allison six abreast for the lead underneath nearly ten lapped cars on the main
straight. Allison trailed by 3.8 seconds after final stops with 18 to go but
overpowered Pearson, seized the lead with six to go, and won by four lengths.
"I was concentrating on not making any mistakes," Allison said after
his eighth win of the season and fifth in the last seven races. Petty made one
stop after another to replace blistered right fronts and was seven laps down in
third. Bobby Isaac was eliminated after twelve laps when Fred Lorenzen crowded
Tommy Gale into a spin and Gale collected Isaac, Joe Frasson – who relieved G.
C. Spencer, crashed again, and quipped, "Just call me Super Crash" –
and Leeroy Yarbrough.
Buddy Baker crashed with Dick Brooks in
mid-race, and after the event Baker and Isaac were involved in the big driver
change of the season; "I want to run more than just a handful of
races," Baker said and he was ticketed to run a second K&K Insurance
Dodge, but then Isaac quit the team, saying, "We don’t need to be running
two cars when we can’t keep one together."
With the Southern 500 the stretch run to
the title beckoned, and Petty was determined to get back into consistent
winning, since that was what was needed to hold off Allison. With Baker gone,
the #11 team, which had begun to cost too much, was folded into the regular #43
effort and the team built "mini roll cages" in their short track cars’
fenders for better protection in the coming bullring swing.
At the Capital City 500 Petty nerfed
Allison out of the groove and took the lead, but in Three Allison hit back hard:
"I hit Bobby off the second turn and going into Three he hit me back, to
let me know I’d hit him. That got me sideways and Bobby backed off, but Buddy
(Baker, now in the #71) didn’t back off. At that point I figured whoever was
running fourth (it turned out to be Hylton) was gonna win this thing."
The double-contact sent Petty onto the
steel Armco and he rode atop it, bounced back onto the track, and wound up
winning by over a half-lap. Allison finished second, but the real blow came a
week later when Bobby blew up at Dover and Petty finished a distant second to
Pearson. The showdown began heating up at Martinsville as Allison won the pole
and was almost completely in charge up front. Petty, though, never let him get
away, and things got hotter when Petty cut a tire and came out of the stop right
in front of Allison. NASCAR waved the move-over flag at Petty, but "I
wasn’t holding Bobby up….I was in second place and he wasn’t outrunning me.
The passing flag is supposed to get slower cars to move over and let faster cars
go by. Allison didn’t get that far ahead by outrunning me." A later yellow
put Petty behind Allison and the two pounded away for the final 100 laps. Petty
clipped the curb, caught Allison in the rear, and jarred Bobby’s gas cap loose;
NASCAR black flagged Allison for the loose cap but a yellow helped him replace
it without losing track position. He then sideswiped Ben Arnold, lost the lead
to Petty with 38 to go, then nailed Ed Negre into the wall. Petty won by six
seconds and Allison was fined for the black flag. "If you must obey one
flag, why shouldn’t you have to obey them all?" he asked.
Ed Negre cornered Allison over their crash
and Allison agreed to pay for repairs to Negre’s Dodge; Petty Enterprises
repaired the car and Bobby was stuck with a $3,000 bill: "I feel like I’ve
paid for a Dodge and a couple of Plymouths, too."
But it was North Wilkesboro that was the
real explosion. This was Junior Johnson’s home track and his fans were naturally
in the grandstands in droves. Buddy Baker won the pole and led the opening lap,
then gave way to Allison and Petty. The race proceeded without a caution until
James Hylton crashed with fifty to go. When the green waved again Petty and
Allison went at it for the win, and they were changing the lead at an
astonishing rate – ten times over 49 laps.
Petty squeezed past Allison with eleven to
go but was hounded by Bobby through every corner, and at Lap 397 Allison got
underneath Petty off Four, but the lapped car of Vic Parsons loomed and Petty
had better angle to get by, which he used to box Allison behind. But entering
One Allison didn’t back off – "I got under Petty fair and square but he ran
into me coming off the second turn." Countered Petty, "I was a little
ahead of Allison and I used the 45 (Vic Parsons) as a blocker. Suddenly Allison
turned right into the side of my car." Petty slammed the wall in Three but
roared back up high and in One and Two they collided and Petty climbed atop the
guardrail (shades of Richmond the month before) while Allison swerved but kept
going, smoke filling the cockpit. On the final lap he had to dodge Petty’s
bumpers on the race surface, Petty did a slide-job pass in the gap and won by
two lengths.
And this time the fireworks continued
after the event. "He’s playing with my life out there," Petty said –
"The other competitor had to wreck me," Allison huffed. An intoxicated
spectator grabbed Petty in victory lane but was bashed by Maurice Petty using
Richard’s helmet. Some fans approached Bobby about finding and lynching Petty,
but Bobby countered, "we’re not going to have anything like that."
Writer Bob Myers summed up, "Petty
and Allison are NASCAR’s answer to the Hatfields and McCoys." Bill Gazaway
of NASCAR said that "I have a feeling something will be done toward
preventing future incidents." At the behest of Charlotte News photographer
Elmer Horton, Petty and Allison ironed out their feud and shook hands, which
Horton captured on film. "It had started getting too deep and the time had
come for both of us to back up a little," Bobby told writer Frank Vehorn
later.
Back at Richard Howard’s racetrack,
Allison timed fourth while Bobby Isaac was back, now driving a Banjo Matthews
Chevrolet. David Pearson and Buddy Baker dueled early on before Isaac took the
lead; Isaac and Baker traded the lead several times before Allison took over.
Isaac hit a drinking can – "Some fan threw a can onto the track in front of
me. I couldn’t miss it," Isaac said – and his oil pan was split apart.
David Pearson and A.J. Foyt drove team Wood Brothers Mercuries but both were
swatted off the lead lap and left Allison with a fifteen second lead over Petty
and Baker, until Petty crashed with sixteen to go and on the ensuing restart
Baker gunned past Allison. The two fought it out for the lead and Allison got
the lead with four to go. Baker tried on the last lap but was blocked by Cecil
Gordon’s slower car off Four.
Bobby’s ninth win of the year gained him
some point ground with a week off on which he entered a Trans Am race at
Riverside. But at five AM Pacific Time – eight AM Eastern time – Richard Howard
telephoned Allison in his motel room and stated that "we have a chance to
get the best driver in NASCAR right now." Only marginally awake, Bobby
replied, "Get him," and went back to sleep. The timing of the call was
hardly coincidental – "With me in California, I was basically out of the
way," Allison wrote in his 1998 biography. Allison had never gotten along
"with Junior and his backwoods buddies," as he called them to Bill
Libby in the mid-1970s, and had been talking with Ralph Moody about a reunion of
the alliance that had won nine of Bobby’s eleven race victories in 1971.
Howard, meanwhile, was announcing that
Cale Yarborough, out of NASCAR during 1971-2 in an aborted Indy car effort with
Gene White, would drive his Chevrolets in 1973 with sponsorship from Kar-Kare, a
chain of automotive companies Cale had invested in years before. Cale had driven
Hoss Ellington’s Chevrolet several times in 1972 and had finished fifth at
Michigan in August.
With all this going on, Allison raced at
Rockingham to try and gain more ground on Petty in points. He led 217 laps and
finished two laps ahead of Petty after Richard pitted with 40 to go with worn
tires. But Allison was not gaining much ground, and in two weeks was the season
finale at Texas. Bobby had nonetheless set a remarkable record – in all 30 races
and the final nine events of 1971 he’d led – a record compared to those of Joe
Dimaggio. In all he’d led some 4,300 laps in 1972 to Richard Petty’s 2,000 laps.
Allison’s streak was stopped at the Texas
500 as Buddy Baker, A.J. Foyt, and Petty engaged in a spirited duel won by Baker
by six feet over Foyt with Petty hot on their heels in third. "To win the
last race of the season is great," Baker said. "This will carry me
over to 1973." The win was the K&K team’s second career win at Texas,
only their second of 1972, and Baker’s sixth career win. With his third place to
Allison’s fourth, Richard Petty won the championship by 127.9 points, with James
Hylton (11th at Texas) third in points, 414.8 behind Allison.
Bobby Allison was voted Most Popular
Driver for 1972 while Chevrolet won the Manufacturers Title 175 to 152 over
Dodge, with Mercury at 150 and Plymouth at 116.
So ended the 1972 Winston Cup Grand
National season, as memorable as any over the years with some superb competition
and a fierce point race.
Thirty years ago this season.