NASCAR Odd Facts, post yours...

K

KingGlamis

Guest
Just for fun post odd facts about NASCAR that you come across. I'll start with...

Jeff Gordon is one of the few drivers to drive for the same team, Hendrick, for his entire Cup career. That's a notable statistic, but the odd part about my post is... in Jeff's first season he finished 79th in points! 79th!!! Say what? Granted, that is because he only started one race (1992), but it still seems odd to see a 4-time Champion have a 79th place finish.
 
In 1976 Janet Guthrie became the first woman to compete in a Winston Cup race. She finished 15th in the wold 600 race. She also qualified for the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 in in the same year of 1977.
 
My brother thinks NASCAR stands for Non Athletic Sports Centered Around Rednecks. And for him, it never gets old when he says it. :owquitit:
 
Man, there are all kinds of stories that could fill this thread. Nice idea.

Something that could never be done today.....

The Incredible 27

In 1967, Richard Petty drove a Plymouth Satellite to an incredible 27 wins in 48 starts. Petty Enterprises used only one car all season long. Because Petty was up front in most of the races, he was able to avoid crashes or mechanical failures.

Petty collected his second of seven career championships that year.
 
In 2008, Jack Roush announced that the 99 team had discovered an anti-gravitational flux at the Las Vegas track. This anomoly caused the cover on the oil trunk to rise 6 inches off it's base, and surprisingly increase downforce by 10%.

Much like all great scientific discoverys, nobody believed him.
 
SpeedPagan said:
In 1976 Janet Guthrie became the first woman to compete in a Winston Cup race. She finished 15th in the wold 600 race. She also qualified for the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 in in the same year of 1977.
Click to expand...

Because my daughter would beat me in the head if I don't mention this here go's:

Technicaly yes Janet Gunthrie was the first female driver to race in "Winston Cup" she was not the first female NASCAR driver.

Sara Christian June 19 1949 @ Charlotte is the first female NASCAR driver of record she started 13th finished 14th with a little help from a co-driver.

However:
Louise Smith will always be known as the"First Lady of Racing" ( says something about Sara's demeanor huh? ) she competed in multiple events during the 1949 season.
 
Even though this is not a "good" story it is still part of history. I didn't know before tonight that Richard Petty did some drag racing.

"Joining in the Chrysler boycott of NASCAR due to the organizing body's ban of the Hemi engine, Richard spent much of 1965 competing as a drag racer. He crashed his car at the Southeastern Dragway, in Dallas, Georgia, on February 28, 1965, killing an eight year old boy, Wayne Dye, and injuring seven others."
 
A Superspeedway With No Straightaways

From 1949 through 1957, Langhorne (Pa.) Speedway was a fixture on NASCAR’s schedule. It was built in the shape of a circle measuring exactly one mile in length without a frontstretch or backstretch.

Curtis Turner, Bill Rathmann and Herb Thomas, to name a few, won there. Unfortunately, several drivers lost their lives on the strange-looking track that was obviously extremely hard on left-front tires and drivers’ nerve.
 
The tiny .2 mile oval Islip Speedway was the smallest track to ever host Grand National racing (6 races). The track also claims to have originated demo derby racing, and was the first stock car track to recieve national broadcasts with Wide World of Sports in the early 1960's.
 
Don't remember the facts, but an odd moment is when Dale Earnhardt hit the low point of his year when he blacked out early in the Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington, causing him to hit the wall. Afterward, he was disoriented and it took several laps before he could find his pit stall. When asked, Earnhardt complained of double vision which made it difficult to pit. Mike Dillon(who is Richard Childress's son-in-law, and father of up and coming driver Austin Dillon who is racing n the Nascar Nationwide Series) was brought in to relieve Earnhardt for the remainder of the race. Earnhardt was evaluated at a hospital and cleared to race the very next week, but the cause of the blackout and double vision was never determined.
 
During a race, a driver’s pulse is at 85 percent of maximum, similar to marathon runner.
 
FlFlash said:
Because my daughter would beat me in the head if I don't mention this here go's:

Technicaly yes Janet Gunthrie was the first female driver to race in "Winston Cup" she was not the first female NASCAR driver.

Sara Christian June 19 1949 @ Charlotte is the first female NASCAR driver of record she started 13th finished 14th with a little help from a co-driver.

However:
Louise Smith will always be known as the"First Lady of Racing" ( says something about Sara's demeanor huh? ) she competed in multiple events during the 1949 season.
Click to expand...

from http://www.jayski.com/stats/women.htm

Women in NASCAR - 14 Women have ran at least one race in the Sprint Cup Series
(by earliest date raced)
Louise Smith (11 starts/from 1949-1952)
Sara Christian (7/1949-1950)
Ethel Mobley (2/1949)
Ann Bunselmeyer (1950)
Ann Chester (2/1950)
Ann Slaasted (1/1950) Marian Pagan (1/1954)
Fifi Scott (2/1955)
Goldie Parsons (1/1965)
Janet Gunthrie (33/1976-1980)
Christine Beckers (1/1977)
Lella Lombardi (1/1977)
Robin McCall (2/1982 Wally Dallenbach Jr's wife)
Patty Moise (5/1987-1989 Elton Sawyer's wife)
Shawna Robinson (8/2001-2002)

Sara Christian has the best finish of the 15 women, a fifth at Heidelberg Speedway in Pittsburgh, PA on Oct 2, 1949(ESPN2's RPM 2Night - stats by Jayski from Greg Feilden's Stock Car Racing Encyclopedia). Some list another woman, Sandy Lynch, but research revealed that Sandy was not a woman, full name: Sandy Neal Lynch (also a son of a former Lynch crew member emailed me in April and said Sandy was a male)(6-8-2001)
 
I mentioned the First Two from memory, What do Ya want from me? I was'nt even born back then :p
 
FlFlash said:
I mentioned the First Two from memory, What do Ya want from me? I was'nt even born back then :p
Click to expand...

i ain't that old yet either! actually giving you credit. the extra info was for your daughter. i've got two of them. and trust me: teenage daughters WILL make you old!
 
klemmabyna said:
i ain't that old yet either! actually giving you credit. the extra info was for your daughter. i've got two of them. and trust me: teenage daughters WILL make you old!
Click to expand...

:p The daughter I was refering to is a freelance journalist, recently she wrote and had published an article about Female race car drivers that delved deeply into the History of Women in NASCAR. If I had'nt remembered at least something from the article she would of beat me down in a way that only a daughter can.
Know what you mean about teenage daughters, I just barely survived having two.....Good Luck!
 
Here's one I always liked. I had to check the date...

In 1963, Tiny Lund drove the Number 21 Ford to victory in the Daytona 500 for The Wood Brothers - and never once changed tires.
 
SpeedPagan said:
Hey, make fun all you want, but that guy has a great bar story for the rest of his life. :cool:
Click to expand...

I'm sure he wound up spending a little time behind bars ( If you've ever met the Bama Highway Patrol you might have also ) butt I don't think they'd give him Life for that?
 
FlFlash said:
I'm sure he wound up spending a little time behind bars ( If you've ever met the Bama Highway Patrol you might have also ) butt I don't think they'd give him Life for that?
Click to expand...

You've never heard of a bar story before? :confused:
 
FlFlash said:
I'm sure he wound up spending a little time behind bars ( If you've ever met the Bama Highway Patrol you might have also ) butt I don't think they'd give him Life for that?
Click to expand...

WOW. You might want to put a helmet on when a wood pecker is flying around.
 
chromehorn said:
WOW. You might want to put a helmet on when a wood pecker is flying around.
Click to expand...

You might want to try and think just a lil bit when reading someones post you might get more out of it than you apparently are. Possibly even a smile.
 
FlFlash said:
You might want to try and think just a lil bit when reading someones post you might get more out of it than you apparently are. Possibly even a smile.
Click to expand...

must be something wrong with me. i understand flash abnormally perfectly. <g>
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom