Posted by Goose on May 25, 2014 at 07:56:51 from (70.198.35.90):
In Reply to: OT Indy 500 posted by John T on May 25, 2014 at 06:14:08:
I've never had much to do with Indy racing, but even after racing late model stock cars myself for some 12-15 years I can't stand to watch NASCAR racing anymore.
When I was stationed at the Marine Corp Air Station at Beaufort, SC in 1963, I used to go the races on a 1/2 mile dirt track in Savannah, GA every Friday night. At that time Cale Yarborough was one of the local brats driving a Sportsman car, Leroy Yarbrough and Tiny Lund were regulars, etc. My own racing days peaked in an era with Cale, Petty, David Pearson, Bobby Allison, (I met him a few times), Buddy Baker, etal.
Back in those days, in NASCAR, a driver could build his own car, have a few buddies help in the pits, and be competitive. Even if you didn't win, you could make a decent living by finishing 10th to 20th, and have fun doing it. A self-sponsored black driver, Wendell Scott, never won but he was usually around at the end of a race. Nowadays, if you don't have a corporate sponsor putting up millions of dollars, you can't even think about it.
And, there was an element of creativity involved back then. It was a friendly game between the teams and the officials to see how much they could get away with. I heard of Smokey Yunick standing beside a stock car, holding the bladder out of the fuel cell, and arguing with an official about the capacity of the bladder. In the middle of the argument, Smokey said, "To hell with it", threw the bladder into the back of the car, crawled into the driver's seat, fired it up and drove a half mile to his hauler. So where did the gasoline come from while he drove that half mile?
Nowadays, with the cars being mandated to be identical and the race nothing more than follow the leader, I simply get bored silly if I try to watch it.
I guess one thing still holds true, though. Bobby Allison once had a sign over the work bench in his shop that said, "No Amount Of Human Endeavor Will Ever Replace Dumb Luck". I think that's still true.
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