Stock Car Racing?……
Are there any NASCAR fans out there?….Well, you probably won’t appreciate what I have to say, but at least hear me out…… Now, don’t get me wrong, I used to be a BIG NASCAR fan years ago…. But now, I get tired of watching a bunch of different colored melted “twinkes” goin’ ’round and ’round in a circle…. Except for the colors and numbers they all look alike….. Just makes you want to watch them smash into the wall and/or each other…. And the rules have always been slanted to certain manufacturers and cars (More on this later if I get any comments on this post.)……
The “Stock” in NASCAR went out in the ’70’s…. NASCAR is an abbreviation for “National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing” or something there-abouts…. Well, as far as I’m concerned today it stands for “No Actual Stock Cars Are Racing”…. Go to your local dealership and see if you can find and/or purchase anything that remotely resembles what you see on a NASCAR track…….
Now, if you’re a REAL NASCAR fan, you should be able to answer this question: I saw Richard Petty race at the height of his career….. Where did I see him race?……
Pit Stop clock is running………..
May 19th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
Yeah I agree that there doesn’t to be much “stock” in the cars. Here’s a non-answer from About.com that puts the “lack of stock” bodies starting in the mid-to-late 1980’s.
I do like your “No Actual Stock Cars Are Racing”. :>
May 19th, 2005 at 9:59 pm
Are you pickin’ on good ‘ole Nascar? Well, my friend Bubba says that if anything’s different in Nascar it’s the lack of pure driver talent. You can get any ‘ole yahoo to sit behind the wheel if his daddy was rich enough to buy his ride or if he has a face to sell stuff. Why just the other day, me and Billy Joe was talkin’ bout what a whiny baby Kevin Harvick is–don’t he know that “rubbins racin’?!” Money rules–just look at poor Winston! Speaking of, my dream was to be a Winston Cup Girl–sounds so much better than Nextel Cup Girl–but my daddy says he ain’t payin’ for no more pageants. So I had to get a job at Hooters to pay for the upcoming Miss FireAnt Festival Pageant. Well, gotta run…oh and if you still want some real stock car action, go see the General! That’s General Lee–coming to a theater near you real soon! YEE-HAW!
May 20th, 2005 at 9:21 am
I think auto racing is a great sport to participate in or to play in video games.
But it is incredibly boring to watch, and for the life of me I can’t fathom why hundreds of thousands of people want to watch cars drive around in circles. Or watch the same thing on T.V. (“Wow, look at his drafting ability!”) Color me unimpressed.
May 20th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
On Jek’s comment – I agree with the comments made in the article he referenced, but as he indicated it actually started in the late ’70’s as far as the body, it was earlier than that with frames and engines (in my opinion)…..
On Dixie Landry’s comment -Big Tony and I agree totally that big money ruined NASCAR just like it has many other sports…… An average NASCAR car runs in the neighborhood of 250 to 450 thousand….. That’s a lot of bucks when they restrict the performance to about what a real stock car was doing in the ’60’s and ’70’s because of safety (Gravity works)…… …And I have the first two seasons of the “Dukes of Hazzard” on DVD…… It’s a shame they had to destroy so many Chargers, but the racing scenes more than make up for it and they’ll be ’round for us’uns to keep an ‘ol eye on fer a long time, ya’ll hear (blaring car horn playing “Dixie” in the background)……. Some of the plots are a little lame, but I enjoy watching them anyway…..
On TTop’s comment – I agree completely that NASCAR has become boring to watch….. It would be great to take a couple of laps in one of the cars or maybe be in the pits, but, like I said in my post, It looks like a bunch of melted twinkes out there…..
I see all of the comments avoided my question about Richard Petty…… O.K…. I’m going to give a hint every day or so until someone figures it out or I stop getting comments on this post…..
Hint #1: You don’t have to know me personally and/or what races I’ve seen to answer the question…….
May 21st, 2005 at 8:56 pm
If no one else is going to answer your question I will.
State Fair Grounds, Oklahoma City.
Who does’nt want to see some yahoo junk out a 450,000 dollar car on national TV.
Usually taking out the lead car at the same time.
May 21st, 2005 at 11:12 pm
I’m a guessin’ man, and I guess that the height of Petty’s career would have been in 1984 when he won his 200th race at Daytona, when little things like firecrackers could sponsor races. Of course his true height during his career would probably have been years earlier when he was consistently winning, but my guess is that you were getting cooked in the grandstands in July in Florida.
May 22nd, 2005 at 8:33 am
Both LsdRobo and Jayhawk Jim are wrong about where I saw Richard Petty race….. But. and I have to watch what I say to avoid giving away the answer too soon, They both need to re-read Hint #1….
Jayhawk Jim was right about one thing, the height of Petty’s career was long before 1984……
Hint #2: Yes, most people would consider this as a trick question (once you know the answer), but anyone that really knows NASCAR history knows the answer, and as a bonus to this hint, the answer is tied to a certain statement I made in paragraph one of the original post…..
May 22nd, 2005 at 11:22 am
Youre enjoying this aren’t you? My guess would be 1973 (The last Year for Petty enterprises and Chrysler Corp)
as for where, I don’t have a clue (Although you gave 2)
I agree Nascar has gotten completely away from the roots of it’s origins ( Tell that to someone who don’t care and watch ’em fuss) , But who would pay to watch a bunch of 4 Cylinder plastic matchbox cars go round and round ! This goes hand in hand with a discussion we had in a former post Re: Gas Why?The whole thing boils down to Money just like the crap of them dropping Winston-Salem corp after all these years just because “Sponsoring Nascar Might make Kids Smoke” What a bunch of Smoke filled CRAP!, It was all about who would give Mike Helton(President of Nascar) the most money so he can sit on his oversised NEVER HAVIN DRIVEN Butt and make completely assinine rules changes. And if I hear one more announcer refer to a Pre 2004 race or event as the Nextel Cup Something or other I am goimg to Declare Jihad on the network or publication, Face it Sparky, Nascar has a past and from 1974 until 2003 It was called WINSTON Cup, It happened deal with it! Political correctness My Redneck Moonshine’n stock car racin Butt..
But let me steal some of the thunder from another post you probably have spinning around in your thouroughly full Melon, The same can be said for Drag Racing, Which as you know Just brakes my heart [Pun Intended].
I guess that’s why I still like Dirt track racing You still can just knock the windows out, put a roll cage in and go racin It still takes a good amount of money to be real competitive but the guys , and gals who are out there going round in circles on Fri and Sat Nites are still out there because they still having fun and racing for the pure competiveness of it, Remember I did it for 10 years and won 2 championships and had fun the whole time.
May 22nd, 2005 at 8:06 pm
I’ll make a completely uninformed guess based on an 80’s Commie 64 computer game.
The where: Talladega. I think the game was called Richard Petty’s Talladega Challenge.
The when: no clue.
May 23rd, 2005 at 12:20 pm
I am a NASCAR fan and I love to watch the racing. But I do have to agree with all of you that it has changed very much from the past. They are taking the ‘racing’ out of the race. I have to admit, I don’t enjoy watching the races since Earnhardt died. He was exciting to watch, always coming from behind and being the one to watch out for. I would much rather watch a race than to watch NFL or NBA. Racing has changed due to big money. It’s a shame and I think it will lose a lot of the fans.
May 23rd, 2005 at 5:28 pm
Yes, J.J., I am enjoying this,especially since I’ve gotten you lost in the Ozone….. The height of Petty’s career was certainly not when Chrysler got out of NASCAR racing….
Jek’s grabbin’ for straws…… Yes, that was a wierd name for a computer game since Ford used the name Talladega for one of their cars while Chrysler used Daytona for one of it’s famous cars….. The first stock car to break the 200 MPH record…. Of course, NASCAR made sure Ford broke this record before they ruled that speeds in excess of 200 MPH were unsafe, thereby giving Ford a “safe” “Fastest Stock Car in the World” record that can’t be broken because it can’t be challenged (there’s a hint there for anyone paying attention)……
And, last, but not least, LazyJ decided (smartly) to stay out of the Petty question, but gave us some more insight on the big money racing….. I wonder if watching NASCAR on TV will ever get as boring as golf?….. No, because NASCAR changes the rules on a daily basis….
If no one gets the answer before tomorrow, I’ll post another hint…… If You’alls are still interested in knowin’…….
May 25th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Okay, let’s bring this to a close….. I had pics and an article on this and I knew exactly where it was because I was going to use it for a finish to this post….. I searched for it for about three hours and I give up!….. I will post it on my website as soon as I find it…. But, onward……
Here’s the answer:
In 1964 Richard Petty broke every NASCAR record and won every race he was in, including the Daytona 500, Why?….. Chrysler Corporation introduced a newly designed 426 cubic inch version of it’s Hemi-Head engine that was first introduced in the early ’50’s which powered the famous Chrysler 300 series and the DeSoto Adventurer….. This engine came in two versions – a NASCAR version with a single 4-barrel carb and a drag version with 2 4-barrel carbs mounted on a short ram-inducted manifold….. These engines were offered as an option for the Plymouth and Dodge cars….. Anyone could go to your dealer and order this option for $1,200.00, which at that time was fairly steep considering a complete car with a V-8 and all the options (not including the Hemi) ran in the $2,000 to 3,000 price range….. Needless to say, Ford and General Motors were literally left in the dust at the Drag strips and the NASCAR tracks in 1964….. They were caught with their pants down without an engine or even an engine in the works that was competitive with the Hemi…..
So the answer to the height of Petty’s career (in my opinion) was the end of the 1964 season, but this was not the year I saw him race,,,,,, It was 1965, why?, read on…..
This next section answers the reference to the hint which referred to a line in the first paragraph of the post…. The line is,”And the rules have always been slanted to certain manufacturers and cars”….. Ford and GM were not about to have another embarassing year on the NASCAR tracks since they still hadn’t developed a competitive engine, so they got NASCAR to ban the Hemi engine for the 1965 season….. I don’t remember the exact reasons they used (I wish I could find that article!)…… They tried to get the Daytona banned in 1969, and the SuperBird in 1970…. They had NASCAR raise the number of cars that had to be sold to the public to be eligible to race a particlar body style on a NASCAR track from 500 units to 2,500 units….. I remember seeing ’70 SuperBirds at local dealers in ’71 for $1,500 new…. They were just trying to get rid of them….. I guess MoPar collectors have to thank NASCAR for that rule anyway or there would hardlybe any in existence now, although a SuperBird these days go for around $250,000!….. Ford and GM still control NASCAR to this day….. I watched “The Dodge Charger 500” a couple of weeks ago and every time a Dodge took the lead somehow a yellow flag appeared out of nowhere and then the Dodge wasn’t in the lead anymore because of the yellow flag rules that allows cars to get new tires, etc…. Each of these yellow flags were spaced just about the time the cars needed new tires and the last one was with only 3 laps left….. One was debris on the track…. They showed a guy pick-up a fist size piece of chrome that looked like it came off the bumper of a ’53 Pontiac which was on the bottom of the track nowhere near where the cars were racing and less than a foot on track…. So much for fair play….. I could go on, but let’s finish this up…….
All that’s left is the big “ANSWER” – HERE IT IS……
When NASCAR banned the Hemi engine for the 1965 season, Petty Enterprises boycotted NASCAR and built a 1965 Barracuda Drag strip car….. Richard Petty raced on the drag strips in this car with a big “43” on the doors, painted “Petty” blue and named “Outlawed”….. So the answer as to where I saw Richard Petty race was on the drag strip in 1965, not on a NASCAR track!!
As a footnote, NASCAR did lift the ban before the end of the 1965 season and Petty went on to win 5 NASCAR races that year…….
May 26th, 2005 at 10:59 am
I check in after being out of town for a bit and discover the biggest discussion is about, no, it can’t be…… ‘Nekcar! And even zanier, bound up with persecution complex MOPAR worship.
NASCAR drivers need to get some tutorials from the eurosnob F1 guys in order to get a handle on those obscure driving principles of braking and shifting, along with the most rare event of them all, the right turn.
May 30th, 2005 at 12:40 pm
Last comment for me under this post…..
I moved the pic from my website to here…… Enjoy………
May 30th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Is there something messed up on the aspect ratio on that picture? It looks like the Barracuda is too short lengthwise.
May 30th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
In answer to Jek’s aspect comment (No. 15), no, if anything it’s a little stretched… The picture has the tail light section clipped-off (that’s the way the pic was)…… That’s about another foot of the car counting the back bumper…..I think you are used to the ’70-’74 style Barracudas that were wider, longer and flatter…. The ’65 Barracuda was a Valiant (at that time this size of car was called a “compact car”) with the largest automotive back window ever produced….. The Barracuda was Chrysler’s answer to the Ford Mustang which was introduced mid-year in ’64 and was basically the same size…. Small, sporty, and with lots of power compared to the normal larger-sized cars of the era and was aimed at the younger generation, which would be “Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation”…..
May 30th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
I wasn’t talking about the tail. It just looks a little short in front of the door. Perhaps it is because the driver seat is way back from a normal Barracuda.
May 31st, 2005 at 5:48 am
Yes, the driver’s seat is almost where the back seat should be….. If you look at the fresh air intakes on the hood, you will notice that they are almost against the windshield, which indicates that the engine is also set-back from its original position….. This was done in order to place the maximum weight on the rear wheels for traction…..