REAL NASCAR

By the early 1960s NASCAR had rebounded vigorously from the precipitous decline that began in 1957.  New speedways at Daytona, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Bristol; a stable full of talented and charismatic drivers—although Curtis Turner had been “banned for life” for attempting to unionize drivers--; and the return of the auto manufacturers and their money—first through the back door and then openly in 1962 when Henry Ford II publicly announced Ford’s return—helped pack the stands once again and brought newfound credibility to the sport.

By 1964, however, clouds—once again at least partly produced by the auto manufacturers—loomed over NASCAR.  This time the issue was not a united walkout by automakers, but the intense battle between Chrysler and Ford over dominance on the track and Big Bill France’s desire to keep the playing field relatively level between the manufacturers.

Chrysler upset that competitive balance in 1964 when it introduced the Hemi engine and dominated the season.   The Hemis “KO’d much of the opposition” at the ’64 Daytona 500 with Richard Petty leading a 1-2-3 Plymouth sweep.  Petty went on to win eight more races and win the first of his seven championships in NASCAR’s top division.  David Pearson was not far behind winning eight races in a Cotton Owens Dodge.  Hemi-powered cars also won almost all of the major races that year with Jim Paschal winning the World 600, A.J. Foyt taking the checkers at the Firecracker 400, and Buck Baker cruising to his third career victory in the Southern 500.

In late 1964, under pressure from Ford and from fans who were tired of seeing a Plymouth/Dodge parade, Bill France announced that the Hemi would be banned for the 1965 season.  Not long afterward, Chrysler head honcho Ronnie Householder announced that the make would boycott NASCAR.  Under contract with Plymouth, Richard Petty took to the drag strips of the Southeast racing the #43/Jr. Hemi-powered Barracuda with the words “Outlawed” emblazoned on the side.

The boycott did not work out well for Chrysler, Richard Petty, or NASCAR and Bill France.  Chrysler officials and fans had to stand by and watch a Ford parade dominate the 1965 season.  Richard Petty’s drag racing career was tragically punctuated by a horrible accident when his out-of-control car flew into the crowd at Dallas, Georgia, injuring eight people and killing an eight-year-old boy.  Bill France faced a precipitous drop in attendance at races and a virtual mutiny from track owners who had trouble selling tickets to the Ford-dominated races. 

Finally, France reached an accord with Chrysler to allow Hemi-powered, shorter wheelbase cars on tracks “of one mile or less” and by late July the factory-backed Plymouths and Dodges—along with drivers Richard Petty, Bobby Isaac, and David Pearson—were back on NASCAR’s tracks.  In order to spark publicity and fan interest, France even lifted his “lifetime ban” on Curtis Turner.  Chrysler’s return and Curtis Turner’s victory in American 500 at Rockingham’s brand new North Carolina Motor Speedway caused many to believe that NASCAR was back on track to becoming a major American professional sport.

Those thoughts were premature, to say the least, however, when Ford decided to boycott NASCAR after the hemi-powered Plymouths and Dodges took seven of the top ten spots in the Daytona 500 and NASCAR’s subsequent announcement that it would not allow Ford teams to run the new 427-cubic-inch single overhead cam engine (SOHC) without a punitive weight penalty.  The 1966 season was a sad repeat of 1965 with the manufacturers’ roles reversed.  Attendance once again plummeted at NASCAR races.  Indeed, the spring Rebel 400 at Darlington attracted only 12,000 fans with 5,000 of those being Boy Scouts who were given complimentary tickets.  A sidelined Ned Jarrett lamented:  “We just can’t keep treating the spectators the way we have the last couple of seasons.”

In the midst of the boycott chaos, NASCAR also experienced one of its worst periods ever in terms of driver safety.  The death of top stars Joe Weatherly and Fireball Roberts in 1964 ushered in a period when NASCAR, in the words of Buck Baker, became “a pretty jumpy game” where “they might just as well just give ‘em all a shot of whiskey and drop the flag.”  The deaths of Jimmy Pardue, Billy Wade, Buren Skeen, and Harold Kite caused many drivers to question their future in the sport.

The constant wrangling with auto manufacturers combined with safety issues led to what Richard Petty termed, “the first mass exodus of top drivers in NASCAR history.”  In late 1966 and early 1967, Marvin Panch, Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett, and Fred Lorenzen all retired as drivers.  As Ned Jarrett observed:  “I got to looking at the security, or lack of security really, that this sport offered and I wanted to spend more time with the family, the kids were growing up, so I made my decision to retire at the end of the 1966 season.”

NASCAR entered the 1967 season at as low a point as it had ever experienced in its almost twenty-year history.  Indeed, the year was very reminiscent of 1957. 

Like 1957, however, the sport bounced back.  While he had lost some of his most recognizable stars, Big Bill France had established stars Richard Petty, David Pearson, and—on occasion—Curtis Turner who he could billboard at his promotions.  The retirements had also opened the door of opportunity for probably the greatest generation of drivers in NASCAR history.  The group—including Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Bobby Isaac, and Buddy Baker—were drivers who not only could handle the close, door-to-door beating and banging of the short tracks but who had no fear of the high backs and harrowing speeds of the new superspeedways.  In addition, all of these guys had come up poor and working-class fans could identify with them and their struggles to make it in the sport.

At a time when NASCAR most needed it, 1967 also brought a story which captured the nation’s attention and imagination; Richard Petty’s dramatic ten-race win streak from Bowman Gray Stadium on August 12 to North Wilkesboro on October 1.  While some observers have downplayed Petty’s accomplishment and contend that he faced little real competition—especially on the short tracks that most owners of factory-backed cars shunned—the streak included the Southern 500 and races at Martinsville and North Wilkesboro against the top factory-backed Fords and Plymouths and Dodges.  Indeed, Ford became obsessed with Petty’s streak and threw everything they had at stopping him.  In addition, anyone who has ever followed racing closely knows that the odds of going through such a stretch of races without a wreck, mechanical failure, or human error of some kind are tremendously long.

It was during the 1967 season that many people began to refer to Richard Petty as simply “The King.”  With a presidential election coming up bumper stickers popped up all over the Piedmont South reading “Richard Petty For President!”  But it was not just Petty’s talent that drew the fans, it was also his charisma, particularly a unique ability to make people feel like they knew him and that he cared about them personally. 

NASCAR, and Petty, also benefitted from the fact that there were plenty of rivals out there at the time ready to challenge his dominance at every race.  The late 1960s brought one of NASCAR’s great rivalries—one that would last for more than a decade—between two of the sport’s all-time greatest; Richard Petty and David Pearson.  Many forget that while Petty won the championship in 1967, Pearson dominated the late 60s winning the title in 1966, ‘68, and ‘69, the only three years he ever ran what would be considered a full schedule.

Rivalries are great for a sport, but feuds can be even better at fueling fan interest and the late 1960s brought one of the most intense and bitter ones in the sport’s history; Richard Petty vs. Bobby Allison.  Allison burst on the NASCAR scene in 1966 mostly piloting a Chevrolet Chevelle without any factory backing.  As his brother Eddie recalled:  “To take a car out the backyard in Hueytown, Alabama and go beat that [Petty] Plymouth was unreal.  It was so neat, because Bobby scared them hot-dog racers to death.  This hick from Alabama [by way of Miami, Florida] could come come out and beat them with this race car that they thought couldn’t outrun a kiddie car.”

The feud began in November 1967 at Asheville-Weaverville Speedway with Petty bumping Allison up the track to take the lead and Allison returning the favor to take the win.  The incident sparked hard feelings that boiled over the next July at Islip [NY] Speedway when after another bumping/blocking incident (as usual, each side asserted that it was the other’s fault) Petty crew members Maurice Petty and Dale Inman went after Bobby after the race, knocking him down and piling on top until pulled off by bystanders.  From then on, whenever the two appeared on the track together (especially on the short tracks) fans flocked in and the tension was palatable.

NASCAR also came out of the doldrums in the late 1960s by not only relying on a tried and true formula of good old boy drivers and beating and banging on the racetrack, but by new innovations that injected excitement into the racing.  Most importantly was the construction of new tracks at Michigan and Talladega which, combined with ever more powerful engines and aerodynamic cars from Ford and Chrysler, produced a literal race to see who would crack the 200 mph barrier—a race Buddy Baker would win in March 1970 at Talladega.

As a historian I try to avoid offering advice to people or predicting the future based on the past.  At the same time, I do believe we can learn some lessons from the ways NASCAR bounced back from severe downturns in its past:

1.  Downturns can be good – In the aftermath of both 1957 and 1967 the sport came back even stronger.  This can partly be explained by the need for creative thinking and for economic efficiencies that such downturns naturally produce.  The lower costs of getting in to the top ranks of NASCAR in both cases opened the door for new drivers to display their considerable talents.

2.  Remember your core audience – Downturns also remind the folks in charge of any business to remember your core constituents.  Big Bill France always came back to his base in the Piedmont South when times got rough and was rewarded for remembering where his money came from.

3.  Stars are important – Most notably in the case of NASCAR, it was Richard Petty’s rise to superstardom that boosted the sport dramatically in 1967.  Fireball Roberts and Junior Johnson did much the same in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  It should also be remembered that it iss not only what stars do on the track, but the connection they build with fans off the track that is important.

4.  Contrasts are important – As Humpy Wheeler once observed about local short track racing, “For every race car, at least thirty people were gonna come to see it race.  Fifteen to see it be successful . . . and fifteen to see the guy get beat.”  NASCAR in both periods benefitted from contrasting (and often conflicting) personalities; good guys and bad guys; quiet guys and outgoing guys; Ford guys, Chevy guys, and Mopar guys.  Interest in racing is stimulated by not only having someone to cheer for, but having someone to cheer against.  I’ll never forget the guy right in front of me at Bristol in 1994 who stood up every lap and shot Dale Earnhardt the bird.  Looked like he was having a great time.

5.  Feuds are important – Classic feuds—Curtis Turner vs. Lee Petty, Bobby Allison vs. Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip vs. Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt vs. Jeff Gordon—have always packed the fans in.

6.  Creativity/Innovation is important – The worst thing a business or sport can do in the midst of a downturn in pull inward, stop innovating, and play it safe.  Downturns are a time for critical self-evaluation, a time to try new things, and quit doing old things “just because we’ve always done them this way.”  NASCAR came out of earlier downturns by taking some big gambles that ended up paying huge dividends.

As we enter a new NASCAR season here’s hoping that another annus horribilis (2009) fades quickly into the past.  I believe that can happen much quicker if the powers that be in Daytona and Charlotte look to the lessons of the past.

Next week:  “Racin’ on the Beach (Or How Daytona got to be Daytona)”