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Discussion starter · #1,021 ·
Nascar records show Pearson's win @ Asheville (which I posted above) was his 7th in 1966. That would make this win in Maryville, Tenn his 8th. Regardless, he would go on to win the 1966 Cup Championship in the Cotton Owens Dodge.

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I like the part where the writer says Pearson so dominated that it was like sitting through an hour long Dodge commercial :D.
 
Discussion starter · #1,022 ·
Photo (shared from Pinterest) of 2 time Pacific Coast Late Model/Winston West Champion driver, Jack McCoy, receiving the trophy after one of his short track wins in his fastback Dodge Charger. Jack still holds the record for wins in the series (now ARCA-West) at 54 - all in Dodges.

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Here is a picture of the FULL SIZED Plymouth Fury with a Hemi in it that Mr Maclaughlin mentions in the link in post #1. It was built and driven by Buck Baker.Chrysler maintained that their full sized cars would never be competitive but the article says that this car finished 2nd in a major Nascar race.



Another shot of the same car.

Great pic! I remember when the '65 Ford Galaxie was a popular car to use, such as for Ned Jarrett.
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Discussion starter · #1,026 ·
Great pic! I remember when the '65 Ford Galaxie was a popular car to use, such as for Ned Jarrett.
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In '65, Ford had Nascar pretty much to themselves as Chrysler pulled it's backing from Nascar teams after Ol' Man France banned the Hemis. Lots of discussion of all that earlier in this thread but I see that a lot of my posted photos/pitures have been replaced with ads :(:mad:.
 
Well, OK.......a little more as I remember it. The "Rich Howard" referred to in the article was Richard Howard, owner (or part owner) of Charlotte Motor Speedway before Bruton Smith. He never gave up on the idea of bringing back Chevys to increase the crowds and his gate receipts. In 1971, he basically funded the effort by Jr Johnson to build what later became known as the Coca-Cola Chebbie driven by Bobby Allison. An essential element of this story can be heard if you listen very carefully when they play the "Back in the Day" series on TV and do the show on this car, namely..............Jr Johnson admitting that he knew that his big-block Chebbie would not really be competitive against the Hemi powered Mopars and Fords and so went to Ol' man France and asked him to make "adjustments" (the word he uses in the TV interview) to the rules so that his Chebbie could run up front with the top cars. The result was the first use in Nascar of restrictor plates, specifically to cut the hp advantages of the Hemis. The Howard backed Chebbie (I believe that Charlie Glotzbach first drove it ) had such an advantage over the choked down Hemis that a nervous Bill France threw a restrictor plate at it also, but always with larger throttle bores than the Hemi cars were allowed. There was so much arguing and bickering over who had an advantage that Nascar was changing the sizes of the rp bore holes every few weeks to try to keep the competition even. If you look at the results from the '72 racing season, you can see that the big races were fairly evenly split between that Chebbie, Petty's Plymouth, and the Woods Bros. Mercury. By the end of that year, all the big blocks had been throttled down so far that Nascar engine builders began to realize that an unrestricted small block could make equal or greater hp. By the end of '73, everybody was using small blocks and the big-blocks were then banned forever by Nascar when it set the current 358" limit.
actually the FIRST use of restrictor plates started at the 2nd Michigan race of 1970.
 
Discussion starter · #1,030 ·
Yes, I had failed to recall that but both "Fast Eddie" and "DC93" have since mentioned plates in that Michigan race earlier in this thread. However, in 1970, there were basically just 2 motors being used in Nascar Cup competition - the Chrysler and Ford Hemis, and both were assigned the same sized restrictor plates, so no brand was intentionally favored. The motivation was just to slow everybody down as there were concerns that the cars were getting just too fast for the tires to hold up safely. It was only after "Brand C" re-entered Cup competition in 1971 that Nascar began fooling with different sized plates for the different brands and I stand by my posting that "Brand C" was deliberately selected for advantages when it came to assigning restrictor plate sizes.
 
Discussion starter · #1,031 ·
Photo (shared from Pinterest) of 2 time Winston West Champion Jack McCoy at the 1972 "Miller High Life 500" at the old Ontario Motor Speedway.


The "1" and then the "W" were added to his usual #7 because there were several other entries with the # 7. The first few Ontario races paid so well that Nascar started 51 cars in the races (3 wide for 17 rows). 62 other drivers DNQ'd in 1972!

Jack finished 12th.
 
Discussion starter · #1,033 ·
This is the link to the article I posted back some 10 years ago to get this thread started. The link has been defunct for years but I managed to locate it via another Nascar historical link. It was written back circa the Millenium for Nascar's 50th anniv. and I think that it is an interesting read for newer followers to this thread. If some of you enjoy it, I can try to find a few more of Matt McLaughlin's Nascar history articles (only ones featuring Mopars and their drivers, of course).

 
Discussion starter · #1,035 ·
Linin' them up in the pits for the start of the 1964 Daytona 500. Paul Goldsmith on the pole in the #25 Ray Nichels Plymouth, Richard Petty on the outside front row after they qualified #1 & #2. Jr Johnson in the Ray Fox Dodge behind Goldsmith, Bobby Isaac in a Ray Nichels Dodge behind Petty and Jimmy Pardue (#54) in another Nichels built Plymouth - all in the order that they finished in the qualifying races

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Richard Petty went on to win the race, the first of his many Daytona 500s. Jimmy Pardue finished 2nd but he was killed later that year in a tire testing accident. Goldsmith finished 3rd. A Ford product did end up in 4th place, busting up a 1 - 5 Mopar sweep of the race but it was nevertheless an utter surprise thrashing of the previously dominant FoMoCo products by the release of Chrysler's "secret weapon" Hemi - a great story (see "Swoop of a Secret Weapon" further down in this section).

(Photo shared from Facebook)
 
Discussion starter · #1,036 ·
Photo (shared from Pinterest) of 6X Pacific Coast Late Model/Winston West Champion Ray Elder just as he was starting out racing in that series in a Dodge he had purchased from Jack McCoy.

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In his very first year racing in PCLM/W. West, Ray won 2 races in this car - SoCal's Ascot Park and Portland. In 1967, Ray won 2 more races in this car, both at Ascot. In 1968, Ray moved up to a 1967 fastback Dodge Charger which he also bought from Jack McCoy and won 4 more races.
 
Discussion starter · #1,037 ·
Photo (shared from Pinterest) of 6X PCLM/Winston West Champion Ray Elder in action @ Ascot Park, a 1/2 mile dirt track in Gardena, Calif. I attended every PCLM/W. West race at this track between 1966 and 1977 and the action was always 1st class. I'm not sure exactly which race this photo is from since the circuit usually ran @ Ascot 2 or 3 times a year, but Ray Elder had a great record here - he won 8 times in the 9 years he ran full time in PCLM/W. West.


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2X PCLM/W. West Champion Jack McCoy at the same race.

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While Jack's record at this track does not match Ray Elder's, it still was pretty good - 1 win and 6 other top 3's. Several of those top 3's were behind Ray Elder or Dick Bown resulting in Mopar sweeps of the top spots.
 
Discussion starter · #1,038 ·
Firestone tire ad touting Ray Elder's win @ Riverside in the 1972 "Golden State 400" with a little play on the word "Chargers".

Ray had a long relationship w/Firestone and used them for racing to 5 of his 6 PCLM/Winston West championships and both of his Riverside wins. When Goodyear became the "exclusive" tire sponsor for Nascar Cup races, Ray had to switch to Goodyears when competing in those.

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Another photo from the same race which I had posted earlier in this thread but which has been superimposed with an ad - Ray's winning Dodge and Chuck Bown's Plymouth which finished 10th after breaking the suspension late in the race.

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Discussion starter · #1,039 ·
Winston West action - 1972

I'm not sure which track this photo is from or whether or not it's a Trophy Dash or a main event but this is the way the front of the field looked for almost any W. West race that year - Dick Bown, Ray Elder, Hershel McGriff, & Jack McCoy battling for the race lead and a championship - all in Mopars. At season's end Ray Elder was the Champion by a few points over Hershel McGriff.

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