Sometime back, in one of my columns in Stock Car Racing, I mentioned racing on dirt tracks. One reader wanted me to write a column about the latter days of dirt track racing. Another reader said he couldn't believe I ever raced on dirt!
Well, pal, we sure did. We did a lot of racing on dirt tracks. I liked racing on dirt, and I'd sure love to see some of these guys who drive on the Winston Cup circuit today try their hand out there on a half-mile dirt oval. That would be exciting and fun to watch.
In fact, 1970 was the last year we ran any dirt track races. We ran three that year. Five of our 54 races in 1969 were on dirt. Seven of our 49 races in 1968 were on dirt. Fourteen in 1967 were on dirt, and go back to 1960 when we ran 21 of 44 events on dirt.
Racing on dirt is different from racing on a paved track. I'm not saying it is all that much tougher, it's just different. Some drivers were good at it, and others weren't.
I can tell you something else, too. It wasn't very clean. Everybody got dirty-the drivers, crews and especially the fans up there in the stands. We kicked up a bunch of dust when the green flag dropped. They would work on the tracks and try to water them down, but we'd grind right on through the mud and get down to the dust in short order.
Another thing, you couldn't clean the dirt from under those cars. There was a time when we'd leave home with one car and go to maybe four or five races before we'd return. Maybe three of them would be on paved tracks and the other two were on dirt.
After a race on dirt, you'd clean up the car as best you could, and go on to the next track. Sometimes when you would pull out on the pavement to begin practice, a bunch of red clay would fall out from under the car.
Daddy (Lee Petty) was a good dirt track driver. So were Curtis Turner, Joe Weatherly, Elmo Langley, Bobby Isaac, Bobby Allison, and David Pearson. There were others, too.
Some of those drivers would keep their car about half sideways all the way around some of the smaller tracks. When I first started racing, I remember being told that you would go faster if you stayed sideways. Well, I soon discovered that wasn't necessarily true, at least not for me. I soon learned the fastest way around the track was to keep the car as straight as possible. Of course, you were sideways most of the time going through the turns, but I tried to keep the car straight as much as I could.
The last dirt track race we (NASCAR's top division) ran was at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds Speedway in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was a 100-miler on a half-mile track. The date was September 30, 1970. John Sears, a good dirt track racer, won the pole and led the first 10 laps. Then Benny Parsons took the lead and led from lap 11 through lap 88. I took over on lap 89 and led the rest of the race, which was through lap 200. I think I averaged about 68 miles per hour. Neil Castles finished second, Bobby Isaac third, James Hylton fourth, and Cecil Gordon fifth. Bobby Allison finished sixth.