Bought some old Stock Car Racing magazines the other day – various months from the mid 1970s. Reading the first one – May 1975 – throws some interesting perspectives when you already know how the story ended later. Some highlights:
- Race cars were too expensive, and a sour economy was hurting car counts and fan turnout. (Ever heard that before?)
- Goodyear formed an Auto Racing Club to “provide a closer relationship between racing people and fans”. (Ever hear of it? Apparently it didn’t take.)
- Chrysler Kit Cars for short track racing. Supposed to make affordable competitive cars available to racers who couldn’t build their own from scratch… (but poor management and a poor economy killed it after a few years).
- Richard Petty speculated about racing Stock Cars at Indianapolis, soon. (Didn’t happen until 1994 – after his retirement from driving.)
- “Grand National” was still the popular name for the top NASCAR series, although officially it was the Winston Cup. (R.J. Reynolds Tobacco started sponsoring the series in 1971.)
- One of the earliest, if not the first, businesses providing safety crews and other track support – Professional Track Services. (Still tracks today with inadequate safety crews.)
- Charlotte Motor Speedway soap opera: Bruton Smith discussing his return to retake control of the track, while praising then track president Richard Howard… Smith says, “I am not in the speedway business and have no intentions of getting into it. I can’t think of a better man than Howard for the job of running the speedway.” (Seven months later Howard resigned after Smith usurped Howard’s power and hired Humpy Wheeler.)