Looking Back April 2: From The Archives
Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 90 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 15, 30 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.
15 Years Ago — 2010News: Fans were given the chance to choose the length of the 50th Goodyear Knoxville Nationals, and they spoke loud and dear.
Through a poll on http://www.knoxvtlleraceway. com, fans overwhelmingly sad the 2010 Knoxville Nationals should be a 50-lap event. Fifty laps received 62 percent of the vote, with 30 laps receiving 34 percent and 40 laps earning just 4 percent.
“The 50th Knoxville Nationals is a milestone and we wanted to make sure we got it right,” said Race Director Ralph Capitani. “Our fan satisfaction is one of our highest priorities, and we feel It is critical to indude their collective desires in our decision making.”
The Knoxville Nationals are scheduled for Aug. 1114 at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway.
Winners: Kevin Harvick took two tires on his final pit stop and held off a closing Reed Sorenson to win Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series Nashville 300 at Nashville Superspeedway.
“To come on the off weekend and be able to win the guitar in Nashville is pretty cool,” said Harvick, who earned his second victory of the season and 36th of his career Saturday. “I thought that track position was gonna pay off there for us at the end.”
A late-race caution flag for Brian Keselowski’s spin in turn four changed the complexion of the race, which was dominated up to that point by polesitter Joey Logano.
During the ensuing pit stops Harvick’s team opted for two tires while most of the lead-lap cars took four. He restarted first alongside Kyle Busch, whom he quickly cleared as he set sail on the 1.33-mile concrete speedway.
Sorenson, who restarted fifth with 30 laps left after taking four tires during the final pit stop, slowly closed on Harvick in the final laps, but ran out of time and was forced to settle for second in his Dollar General Toyota.
“You never know until you actually put the tire on,” Harvick said about the two-tire decision on the final pit stop. “I’m not usually a two-tire guy. Today we got the track position and we were able to get out there just far enough and do what we needed to do.”
Sorenson, looking for his final victory since 2007 while driving for Chip Ganassi, brought the Braun Racing Toyota home second.
30 Years Ago — 1995News: Ford team owner Kenny Bernstein announced Monday that he and driver Steve Kinser have parted company. Bernstein said the two reached a mutually amicable decision to separate.
Kinser, a 14-time World of Outlaws sprint car champion, was attempting to convert his dirt-track talents to NASCAR’s asphalt requirements.
The two started with the Daytona 500 after Brett Bodine quit the team to join Junior Johnson after last season.
“Steve and I went into the 1995 season together with all the best intentions,” Bernstein said. “Kinser is a true racing champion and a gentleman. Our mutual decision reflects what is best for our own respective interests.”
Kinser did not make the field at North Wilkesboro. Rumors that Bernstein had released him surfaced late Sunday. Reached at his home in Indiana, Kinser said if he had been released, he didn’t know anything about it.
Bernstein said Hut Stricklin would serve as the team’s replacement driver on a race-by-race basis starting with the 250-miler at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway a week from Sunday.
Karl Kinser, speaking by phone with NSSN Monday night, said Steve “came and stole my help,” referring to engine builder Scott Gerkin.
According to Karl Kinser. among other sources, Steve Kinser and Gerkin will campaign their own team on the World of Outlaws sprint car circuit.
NSSN learned Kinser saw the handwriting on the wall and made arrangements to hit the ground running.
Sources told this newspaper Kinser’s name was on the work order board at Maxim Chassis Co., a leading sprint car builder, early last week.
Winners: The numbers always seem to add up for Indy car driver Al Unser Jr. in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach as he won the famed street course event for the sixth time in eight tries Sunday afternoon.
The defending PPG champion’s second straight victory at Long Beach was his first this year. Unser dominated, leading twice for 74 laps, including the final 60.
Unser beat new points leader Scott Pruett to the finish by 23.125 seconds.
Teo Fabi was third, his first podium finish since 1990, while Eddie Cheever and Mauricio Gugelmin completed the top five.
Unser averaged 91.442 mph around the 1.59-mile street circuit in downtown Long Beach.
“Well, I finally made it to the press room,” said Unser, who won eight races last year. “We’ve really been working hard. We were behind the eight ball when we got here on Friday with the
problem we had when we broke a valve spring in the motor. At least we finished a race, now. The car really performed well.”
The victory was Unser’s 28th in Indy cars, and his 19th on a street circuit. Of those 19 downtown triumphs, six have come at Long Beach.
60 Years Ago— 1965News: Officials of Indianapolis Raceway Park, a 2.5-mile road course west of Indianapolis, have announced that Richard Petty, defending NASCAR Grand National champion, will make his first stock car racing start of the year in the USAC-sanctioned Yankee 300 on May 2.
Petty, whose entire career has been linked with NASCAR, thus will become the first of the big-name southern stock car pilots to break away and run an event sponsored by the rival USAC.
The Chrysler Corp., which this year withdrew its factory sponsored Plymouths and Dodges from NASCAR competition because of a dispute over rules, is expected to have as many as 10 cars in the race.
The Chrysler Corp. has been keeping many of its 1964 contract drivers busy making personal appearances at auto shows, etc. in order to keep them from competing on the NASCAR circuit. Petty has not competed in a NASCAR race since the new rules were made public last October.
In Randleman, N.C., Lee Petty, father of driver Richard, and head man at Petty Engineering, said, “We’re getting a car ready for the May 2 race.” When asked if they would be finished preparing the car in time, he laughingly said, “We always do, at the last minute.” In a more serious vein, the three-time winner of the NASCAR Grand National title said, “It’s FIA and we are allowed to go, so we’re going to give it a whirl. We don’t particularly like the situation, but when you work for someone else, you don’t always get to do exactly what you want, do you?”
Paul Goldsmith tested a 1965 Plymouth over the 2.5-mile course here Saturday, Sunday and Monday and reported that nis times were under the existing lap record. Goldsmith was the first entry in the 300 miles in a Ray Nichels entered car. Nichels has also entered a Dodge for NASCAR star Bobby Isaac to drive. A third NASCAR ace, David Pearson, is also entered in the race in a Dodge. All are 1965 models.
Though no make car was mentioned by the IRP spokesman, it is believed that Petty will drive a 1965 hemi-head Plymouth. The event here has FIA approval which allows driver interchange from one organization to another, but recent bad weather in the south has resulted in the rescheduling or the “Southeastern 500,” a rich NASCAR event, on the same day.
The IRP press department said the race was shaping up very well, with early entries from Plymouth drivers Bob Goetz, J. C. Klotz, and Bay Darnell; Dodge driver Bob Christie and Ted Hane in a Ford. An early entry from Parnelli Jones in a Mercury is expected.
Winners: A.J. Foyt, took over the controls of the 1965 Ford vacated by ailing Marvin Panch and outdueled game Bobby Johns to capture the $76,000 Atlanta 500 before an estimated 50,700
enthused patrons here Sunday. The Houston, Texas, ace, most noted for his two lndianapolis 500 victories, gained the wheel of Floridian Panch’s racer on the 212th lap or the tortuous 334-lap marathon. He eluded danger while three caution flags were waving, and outdistanced Johns’ ’65 Ford to the wire.
For Foyt, it was only his second time across the finish line with the checkered flag in NASCAR stock competition; his first being the Firecracker 400 last year at Daytona Beach, Fla.
For Panch, accredited with the win and $18,320 first-place money, according to NASCAR rules, it was his first major win since the Daytona 500 in 1961.
And for Fred Lorenzen, gunning for his fourth consecutive Atlanta 500 championship, and Darel Dieringer and Earl Balmer — the Mercury drivers who posed the only major threat to the factory Fords — it was a Dante nightmare on the high-banked Atlanta Int’l Raceway oval.
Officially, Foyt finished 30th among the 44 starters after his 1965 Ford throttle linkage problems.
He was just moments from leaving the speedway en route to Phoenix, Ariz., and tire tests when Panch’s pit chief, Glen Wood, told him of Marvin’s plight. Panch, the polesitter, was suffering from neck cramps and heat exhaustion.
Until Foyt’s relief, Panch had led 136 laps (71 through 103; 108 to 177 and 189 to 212). The flying Texan never relinquished the lead, and was accredited with 113 first-place laps, official average speed was 129.152 mph.
Trailing Foyt and Johns across the finish line were Ned Jarrett, Dick Hutcherson and Buddy Baker.
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