History When Stock Cars Were Still Sorta Stock

Yea bring back the days when they were really stock cars. They should have to change the name from stock car racing to not even close to real car (NECTORC)

 

Race on Sunday sell on Monday!! I loved the good old days of factory sponsorship racing.....Worked great in Nascar and built a huge following in Drag racing...

 

Maybe it's time for someone to challenge nascar. I would love to see racing with "real" cars, even if they are slower. Except for cages and safety, if you can't buy it from the factory, you can't run it. So what if a certain brand dominates for a while? They're pretty much the same now, other than the decals. And if the factories don't want to be left out, they might start making stuff car guys can get excited about. Maybe something similar for nhra pro/stock?

 

NASCAR has turned into a version of IROC.

 

Didnt Hot Rod magazine talk about sponsoring a trans am series a few years ago now that there are new rear well drive Camaro's Mustangs and Challengers? Wonder who the next Mark Donahue would be................

 

Smokey Yunick was the man. Remember the reverse rotation Hudson motors, the 7/8 scale Chevelle, with extra fuel capacity that the inspectors could never find? He had so many creative ways of "bending" the rules, before they essentially blackballed him with the blanket "not in the spirit of competition" rule. It was much more interesting when the cars were built on production platforms.

 

From Gary Faules:

The history behind the WHM is there were two restored Fred Lorenzen race cars around and they have this little message painted on the dash just under the speaker grill. Fred and Ralph Moody set the story straight on that little piece of instruction that came with every one of Fred’s cars.

One of Fred’s first races with HM was the Spring convertible race at Darlington. Ralph had coached him on how to beat Curtis Turner if it came down to a late race battle. Now Moody, being a long time driver before he became a car builder, was better suited than most to guide his driver in the best way to bring back more than just the steering wheel at the end of a race.

He had told Fred to keep trying Turner on the outside until the last lap or so and then fake Turner and duck inside and pass him when he moved up to block. Well, Fred was trying it his own way and getting nowhere and Ralph was in the pits pointing to his head everytime Lorenzen came by. When he made his next pit stop Ralph got the message to him in no uncertain terms….THINK Boy, What the Hells the Matter?

 

damnit, man you beat me to it!! that was the first thing i rememeber when i think of the old days of stock car racin.i never really got interested in that type of racin. drag racing has always been where i .like to be.but around here nascar is still top dog.

 

There was a bit of discussion but it didn't get very far. The three ponycar revivals -- Mustang, Challenger,Camaro -- are all very different cars and only the Mustang is really a ponycar. For example, the Challenger is a Charger with 4 inches out of the middle -- it's enormous. It would be quite possible to equalize them for competition but then the stock character of the cars has been lost.

To me, the closest thing to the original Trans-Am in recent years is SCCA American Sedan, but now it looks like they're losing the plot as well.

I don't want to start a debate but when all is said and done, you can't relive the past. That was then and this is now, there are reasons production racing has evolved to what it is today, and you can't just cram the toothpaste back in the tube. My $00.02.

 

it means think what the hell the matter or a matter

 

Race on sunday, haul moonshine monday-saturday.

 

Thank you for the look back in time, its a nice place to visit from time to time.
As much as I like to remember the good old days, I sure would not want to go back there. I realize part of the awe we hold for the great drivers of yesteryear was partly because the danger involved. We lost a lot of great drivers way before their time should have been. The new cars are a lot safer. Anyone that watched the end of last weeks race saw Denny Hamlin crash into the inside wall hard enough to bring the whole car several feet off the ground and bounce it a good distance away. If you missed it, go to the NASCAR site and watch it. Though Denny was injured, a crash like that back in the day would have had the whole car squished against the wall with a dead driver. These days, every bad crash brings investigation to see if any improvements can be made. There will always be risk of injury involved with racing, but the more stupid chances we can eliminate will produce another chance for the racers to race again. Back in the day, there were a lot of stupid chances taken, and a lot of guys paid the price.

I agree NASCAR needs to be fixed, but how that fix needs to transpire is unclear. The insurance companies the cover NASCAR events will never allow them to go back to production cars, production cars simply can't be made race safe at the NASCAR levels. A fabricated chassis with hung sheet metal will always be the preferred race car construction process. The problem is, current production bodies don't fit the current chassis, but the new nose pieces are a step forward. History has proven they can't let the teams build the bodies without a process to maintain a resemblance to the same car from a different team, but it might be interesting to hand the Ford, Chevy, and Toilet (sorry, I meant Toyota) guys a roof skin and tell them they can't alter the skin, but mount it however you want. They could have a fiberglass roof skin that they set on top of your roof and it has to match perfectly or you park the car. Bet we would get some interesting looking cars then.
Guess we will see what they do next, then either watch or not. Gene

 

Thank You, Bill, for posting this thread. Like many others posters here, my interest in Nascar dwindled to nothing after the shift to spec cars.

Change is the only constant, and I try to accept that fact.....but in this case, I don't have to............they can keep the current Nascar crap.......I have better ways to spend my time

Again, thanks for the look at the "Good 'Ol Days".......

Regards,
Ray

 

All I can say is that I pretty much lost all interest in "Stock Car" racing when the little pop-riveted panel disappeared from where the door handles USED to be.

Doc

 

Good one, thanks. It's difficult to fix one point in time when stock cars were no longer stock, but that's one useful line of demarcation.

 

Actually Toyota did build a hemi but I don't think they imported them stateside. Im definitely not defending including Toyota in NASCAR.

Check it out:
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=339422&showall=1

I would much rather watch just about anything but NASCAR these days, I think the WRC is among the most exciting modern series.

 

Good story, thanks. As you know, Ralph Moody was a great driver in own right who "discovered" Lorenzen and mentored him.

 

Thanks, stay tuned for more.

 

Well said. Time marches on but we always have the past to enjoy.

 

Since a few drivers were mentioned here, I'll add a comment about one of them. I think it was Smokey Yunick who said something like Curtis Turner could do a 180 in the middle of a two-lane bridge in a ton-and-a half rack truck and never spill a drop.

 

Current NASCAR sucks balls.......I like the idea of a sanctioning body creating a new series..... they could be based off late model cars such as the Mustang, Challenger, Charger, Camaro, the new Caddy, etc. Something an "independent" could field... But use the actual chassis/engine.

These cars would need to be brand specific, and the rulebook would be made and kept thin..... run what ya brung.......I would watch

 

The V8 Supercars in Australia are being NASCARfied as we speak. They're subject to economics like everything else.

 

Before the Fords took over Pontiac made a lot of noise...

 

X2. I also like the German DTM cars but I think they are all spec race cars just like NASCAR. The racing is more interesting though.


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AMEN!!!!!!!

WOW, now that is just sexy!!!!

 

^^^^^^The original 'Detroit Lean'....

 

It can't be done. That was then, this is now.

 

ill try to post my nascar stocker got tu scan sum pics

 

this posty makes we want to sell the Willysw and get a 61 Catalina....

I'm another one that lost interest in NASCAR for th most part. The wrestling analogies are what I've said for years. Racing on the local level is still pretty good, if you like roundy-round stuff go to your local short oval, there's where you'll find good racing.

 

A crowd favorite at Hales Corners Speedway when I was a kid, "Rubber Ducky":

This was the only image I could find. I know this is a shot in the dark, but does anyone have some decent pictures of this car? I want to draw a tribute to the Ducky.