Vintage shots from days gone by!

Seattle

 

1968, Richard Petty at Daytona.



Interesting story from the Richard Petty Fan Forum...
"It's become folk-lore that the car had a vinyl roof. That's not the case. It was textured black paint. Call it the golf ball theory of aerodynamics. The "pockets" in the textured paint were supposed to capture air, which would allow the passing air to move more efficiently over the car at speed. Think about it as air sliding against air, instead of air sliding over the sheet metal.
During the race, the roof began separating from above the windshield frame.
Rick mentioned he has learned the car's sheet metal was acid dipped to lighten it, and this led to a failure of the body at speed. That may be true, but the book "The Cars of the King" quotes Dale Inman as saying that a significant weld was missed due to the way the front, top bars of the roll cage were installed. He said the missing weld led to the panel separation.
Also paraphrasing from "The Cars of the King": Almost from the moment the car took to the track, Richard reported he could hear a whistling sound. His pit crew reported they could hear it from the pits when the car passed, even over the roar of the engines.
During the course of the race, many pit stops were required to try to stop the roof from completely separating. At one point Richard actually got out of the car during a pit stop and was on the hood hammering on the sheet metal. The car finished the race with a ton of duct tape sealing the gap and holding the roof sheet metal in place."

 

Chicago 1920s

 

Toronto

 

My guess is they are replacing the windshield. They used to run real laminated glass windshields until about 15 or so years ago. Track debri would hit & crack - or go thru - them and they'd have to replace 'em during pit stops.

 

The car had a vinyl roof on it. The "story" goes that the roof was a decoy to avert attention from the slew of modifications to the car. They had problems with the roof coming apart. This shot shows an attempt to fix the problem. I believe the roof itself, not the vinyl was separating.

 

Richard is out of the car repairing it. Is this the roadrunner they had the roof so modified they had a vinyl roof on it to cover up the body work. I saw an article on one of his Roadrunners that had almost a full bellypan.
Junior Johnson had a 65 or 66 Ford they called the yellow banana it was modified so much, I think Nascar said OK today but don"t bring it back.
Some racers were very smart almost lawyer-like in interpreting and applying rules. In more recent years I always wanted to know just what was wrong with confiscated parts, Nascar was always very vague when they said such and such a part was taken by them.
Nascar got smart and hired the (known) most creative people from the various teams.
I hope for a safe exciting race today and pray that all injured in yesterday's crash are recovering with no life threatening or life changing injuries.
Jay

 

Toronto 1949 Yonge traffic

 

!!! they just showed this film shot on the daytona pre race show...

 

Let not forget Aloha Bobby & Rose

 

Well that makes sense! I didn't see the clip on TV but that looks like Richard with the mallet. Not unusual back in those days for the drivers to climb out during a pitstop.

 

"North east corner King and Bay Toronto 1931"

 

"Man Under Hood & in Trunk 1949 - 1950 Kaiser Automobile circa 1950s"

 

"Mechanic w/ 1939 Ford on Lift in Auto Repair Garage circa 1930s""

 

"Woman w/ 1963 Pontiac Tempest Car California License"

 

"1956 Rambler Custom Car Automobile dated 1961 on back"