L
LUKE'57
Guest
Race Card #92-The end of an era.
1960 marked the last "business as usual" season for ol' Pops but the writing was on the wall. 1960 was the second consecutive season that Turner came up winless. He was deeply involved in the construction and financing of Charlotte Motor Speedway and, in his mid-thirties, was at about the accepted age for retirement in that era.
Looming on the horizon in 1961 was his banishment from Nascar and the rise of new Ford star Fred Lorenzen, not to mention losing his teammate and party buddy Joe Weatherly to Pontiac, all in the same year.
The new decade would mark a changing of the guard in stock car racing in other ways too. With the opening of three more superspeedways, bringing the total to four, speeds were up and a lot of the pioneers weren't comfortable with the increased speeds and the spooky things that it caused the cars to do on the longer tracks. Many were getting to the age to think about turning it over to the young guns and some were taken by crashes.
But even through all that, racing seemed purer and more exciting than the cookie cutter cars and parades that pass for racing these days. I wonder if the giants like Turner and Weatherly and Baker would have even been interested in being the "robot pilot" in one of today's stock cars?
So before I sound even more like racing's version of Andy Rooney I'll just present another find GatorBuilt model from my brother and go off in the corner to watch some films of real racers and real racing. And the countdown continues with eleven cards left.
1960 marked the last "business as usual" season for ol' Pops but the writing was on the wall. 1960 was the second consecutive season that Turner came up winless. He was deeply involved in the construction and financing of Charlotte Motor Speedway and, in his mid-thirties, was at about the accepted age for retirement in that era.
Looming on the horizon in 1961 was his banishment from Nascar and the rise of new Ford star Fred Lorenzen, not to mention losing his teammate and party buddy Joe Weatherly to Pontiac, all in the same year.
The new decade would mark a changing of the guard in stock car racing in other ways too. With the opening of three more superspeedways, bringing the total to four, speeds were up and a lot of the pioneers weren't comfortable with the increased speeds and the spooky things that it caused the cars to do on the longer tracks. Many were getting to the age to think about turning it over to the young guns and some were taken by crashes.
But even through all that, racing seemed purer and more exciting than the cookie cutter cars and parades that pass for racing these days. I wonder if the giants like Turner and Weatherly and Baker would have even been interested in being the "robot pilot" in one of today's stock cars?
So before I sound even more like racing's version of Andy Rooney I'll just present another find GatorBuilt model from my brother and go off in the corner to watch some films of real racers and real racing. And the countdown continues with eleven cards left.