Best and Worst wingcar moments

[nascarxx29]

I still wonder who's R4 red white interior automatic 440 daytona was used for the speedvision commerical



The Best, The Worst And The Goofy
By Ken R. Noffsinger

Racing Cars
Best Moment For A Winged Car: When Buddy Baker officially broke the 200 MPH barrier for a stock car on March 24, 1970 at Talladega, Alabama.

Worst Moment For A Winged Car: The death of Talmadge Prince on February 19, 1970 in the second Daytona 500 qualifying race.

Best Victory In A Winged Car: Pete Hamilton in the Daytona 500 on February 22, 1970.

Worst Victory In A Winged Car: The Daytona's debut race at Talladega on September 14, 1969. Many of the "name" drivers refused to race (because of the condition of the track and its effect on the tires), and as such there was not much competition for Richard Brickhouse. In fact, Bill France was so hard pressed for competitors that he allowed 23 NASCAR Grand Touring cars (Mustangs, Camaros, etc.) to compete in the race.

Best Winged Car Driver (In NASCAR Winged Cars Only): Peter Goodwill Hamilton in the #40 Petty Enterprises SuperBird. Pete averaged an 8.5 place finishing position among all winged car drivers competing in 10 events or more. Richard Petty was next at 9.9.

Worst Winged Car Driver (In NASCAR Winged Cars Only): Don White had one start and finished 39th.

Best Known Winged Car: The #71 Bobby Isaac/Harry Hyde K & K Insurance Daytona. This car(s) spent time on the NASCAR tracks and the Bonneville Salt Flats, and is now gaining more notoriety because of the restoration it is presently undergoing. After Roger Gibson completes the resto, Chrysler, as well as others, plan to show it at selected events throughout the United States and Canada. A fitting tribute to the winged cars, as well as the men and the times that brought them about.

Best Looking Winged Car: Richard Petty's #43 Petty Blue SuperBird. Any car looks good with 43 on it, and most especially a SuperBird.

Best Looking Winged Car (Coolest): Charlie Glotzbach's #99 purple Dow Daytona. Joe Frasson's red and orange #18 Daytona rates honorable mention.

Worst Looking Winged Car: The #30 Dave Marcis car after his wreck at Atlanta on March 29, 1970. Parts of this car are still bouncing.

Best Rule Change As A Result Of An Accident: NASCAR's mandate after Buddy Arrington's wing took flight due to an accident in the second turn in the 1970 Daytona 500. After this, all wings had to have a steel cable passing through them which was anchored to the frame.

Worst Rule Change As A Result Of An Accident: Cable through the wing. What are the chances of a wing flying off a car and hitting someone?

Best And Worst NASCAR Rule To Come About During The Winged Car Era: The restrictor plate. Safer (?) racing, duller racing.

Best Thing Painted On The Outside Of A Winged Car: "426 C. I." - NASCAR rules required that the engine size appear on the hood in digits at least eight inches in height.

Worst Thing Painted On The Outside Of A Winged Car: John Soares, Jr. altered the wing decals so that "Ford" appeared on the helmet which the Road Runner was holding. At least he has a good name.

Best Winged Car Driver Name: John Soares, Jr. It has a good beat and you can dance to it.

The Best Thing To Happen When A Winged Car Wasn't There: Ramo Stott's victory in the Vulcan 500 at Talladega on June 14, 1970. Thanks to "last minute" rule changes, all winged car participants in the race were required to remove their wings and noses if they wanted to participate. Stott won the race in a Road Runner after qualifying for it with his winning car configured as a SuperBird. In a shameless attempt to curry favor with the growing Trekkie population in the south, ARCA named the race for the home planet of Star Trek's most famous character, Mr.Spock.

The Worst Thing To Happen When A Winged Car Wasn't There: Richard Petty's horrendous wreck in the Rebel 400 at Darlington on May 9, 1970. He had crashed his SuperBird in practice, and was using his short track car as a substitute. Accept no substitutes!

Best Wing: Ramo Stott's wing with the hand painted Road Runners on it.

Worst Wing: The short wing with the triangular vertical stabilizers found on the #71 Chrysler mule car. Incidently, the wing could be adjusted from inside the car. This was not allowed on the NASCAR versions.

Best Spoilers: Those attached to Petty Engineering cars at the 1970 Daytona 500. These spoilers were huge - they were wide, tall and had "slots" with veins to allow some air to pass under the car. They seem to have disappeared later in the season, possibly due to a rule change. Or perhaps they were needed more up north for use on some snow plows.

Best Winged Car That Really Isn't: The car in the Richard Petty Museum.

Worst Winged Car That Really Is: The Goody's car (formerly the #30 Dave Marcis car) painted as one of Richard Petty's SuperBirds. This is Goofy, not Goody.

Worst Moment For Bill France Sr. Involving A Winged Car: The five laps Dick Brooks lead in the 1971 Daytona 500 (with a 305 cubic inch Keith Black "sowing machine" motor) after "Big Bill" thought he had legislated the cars out of existence.



Best Winged Cars That Never Happened: The 1971 winged cars that, for a short period, were on the Chrysler drawing boards.





Goofiest Appearing Winged Car: Although the general public's answer to this question would probably be any winged car, it is in fact any car (other than a Daytona or SuperBird) with a Daytona or SuperBird wing bolted on it. If you see one of these atrocities, take no action yourself, but report it to the Mopar authorities immediately!




Best Winged Car Appearance In A Movie: "Big Willy's" Dodge Daytona in the 1971 movie, "Two Lane Blacktop." James Brown should keep his day job.

Best Winged Car Appearance In A Television Series: Another Dodge Charger Daytona in the late '60s series, "The Immortal". Christopher George's character may have been immortal, but the series wasn't.

[[[[[[[[[[Best Winged Car Appearance In A TV Commercial: The winged car in a commercial currently running]]]]]]]]]]
[[[[[[[[[for "Speedvision", a new cable channel.                                                                                             


Best Winged Car Question Asked At Auto Shows: Well, its actually more like the most often asked question, but if you believe more is better, then it fits. Anyway, "What year is it?" is the best question asked at shows.



Best Winged Car Mystery: OK, there's a million things that will never be known about the cars, and this may be one. What is the story on the street SuperBird that was "dressed-up" to look like a Petty racing bird? This car appeared in late '69 and early '70 magazine advertisements carrying the banner, "The obvious reason Richard Petty came back." Petty and his employees are posed around a SuperBird that had certain cosmetic changes made to it (rims, tires, exhaust, decals etc.) to make it look like a racer. At the same time, however, the sheet metal is stock (fender scoops are bolted on, nose is not sealed to body, still has vinyl roof, etc.) Best guess is that the ad was prepared prior to any Petty Engineering birds having been built, so a early street bird was used for the ad. It is obvious that a significant amount of time was spent altering the car, and it would be interesting to know what happened to it.

Worst "Factory Mounting" Idea: Like now, in 1970 some states required cars to have front license plates as well as rear. Chrysler supplied a template so that the lucky owners residing in those states could mount the license plate bracket on top of the nose, slightly above the bumper strip. Although "factory correct", this was so profoundly stupid looking that most owners opted for something slightly less grotesque. If you look up "stupid" in a dictionary printed around 1970, it will have a guy in a green leisure suit drilling a SuperBird nose mounting his front license plate. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!

.

The Worst Name For A Winged Car That Never Was: Plymouth was reportedly giving some serious consideration to calling the Road Runner the La Mancha, a name recommended by Chrysler's marketing consultants. The sheer amount of stupidity that allowed even a fleeting consideration of this name is truly amazing!

Last Updated: 11/22/2005 09:07:59

[hotrod98]

Now that's entertainement.

[PocketThunder]

Good read....  (about stuff that all happend before i was born) hehe

[nascarxx29]

Theres more of this type of wing stuff trivia on the aerowarriors website

[Ghoste]

I would argue that the best looking wing car was the K&K Daytona and the worst rule change to come about was the ban on wing cars and Hemi heads.

[hemihead]

One good thing about Petty's mishap at Darlington in the Road Runner was the advent of the Window Net.Oh, and that Petty wasn't killed or maimed!

[MyMopar]

I would argu :2thumbs:e that the best looking wing car was the K&K Daytona and the worst rule change to come about was the ban on wing cars and Hemi heads.

Nothing truer

[Highbanked Hauler]

Good read....  (about stuff that all happend before i was born) hehe

             I was working in Uncle Sam's cat box known as southeast Asia at that time.

[69_500]

I wasn't born then either, but I did grow up in Southeast Asia so does that count for anything there Al? I lived in Thailand for 8 years.

[Dodge Don]

Did you know that Bobby Isaac won the 70 Nascar championship.....drove a wing car on a few races but most of his wins came in a 70 Charger.....which beat the wing cars. Look it up...it's a fact. 

[adauto]

Good read! And yes I was around then. There is a story that has floated around town here for years. It goes like this .... woman takes delivery in 1970 on a Superbird. Car gets stolen within a week and is never recovered. True or not who knows. But the story goes around every couple a years.

Sorry thats the only winged car trivia I have.....

[69_500]

What is the actual amount of wins for bobby Isaac in 1970 his championship year? I don't know off the top of my head but how did it break down in wins from a Daytona, to 500 to a 70 charger? Just out of curiousity.

[Ghoste]

Well I'm sure I missed some, but I did a quick check and could only find one win for 1970.  Several top finishes but only a single win.

[hemigeno]

What is the actual amount of wins for bobby Isaac in 1970 his championship year? I don't know off the top of my head but how did it break down in wins from a Daytona, to 500 to a 70 charger? Just out of curiousity.

Danny, I counted 11 wins for Isaac in 1970.  Of those 11 wins, 4 were listed as having been achieved in a '69 Dodge, and 7 were listed with a '70 Dodge.  There's some question as to what cars were driven in which races back then, especially on the short/dirt tracks.  Those smaller races weren't televised, and there's little if any video from a lot of them either.  It's anybody's guess as to whether the breakdown I just listed is correct or not.

Doug Schellinger might have some more accurate totals.

[Ghoste]

Hey Geno, could you list those for us?  The only one I could find was the Nashville 420 on July 25, 1970.  I know it's pita but it would be greatly appreciated (by me anyway).

[hemigeno]

Sure thing, Ghoste!

Beltsville 300        70 Dodge
Tidewater 300     70 Dodge
Maryville 300        70 Dodge
Virginia 500         69 Dodge
Hickory 276         69 Dodge
Greenville 200      70 Dodge
Thompson 200    69 Dodge
Nashville 420       69 Dodge or 70 Dodge depending on the resource material you're looking at
Sandlapper 200    70 Dodge
Buddy Shuman 100   70 Dodge
Wilkes 400           70 Dodge

Here's the link to all the race results from '70:

http://www.racing-reference.com/raceyear?yr=1970&series=W

If you click on the number of the race (all the way to the left), it will give you the race results for that particular race as well.  I don't remember where I found that site through, but it's a good one for race results.

[Ghoste]

   Thanks!

[69_500]

Great link there Gene.

Just out of curiousity sakes here let me ask this, how certain are we that the wins listed as a 69 Dodge are all for Daytona's and not for Charger 500's too? I don't think the actual 69 500's won very many races in Nascar, but I'm not 100% on that. One stat I had seen years ago was that the 500's actually won more races than the Daytona's in the 2 year span but I find that hard to believe.

[Ghoste]

Were the Daytona's used much on the short tracks?

[hemigeno]

Just out of curiousity sakes here let me ask this, how certain are we that the wins listed as a 69 Dodge are all for Daytona's and not for Charger 500's too? I don't think the actual 69 500's won very many races in Nascar, but I'm not 100% on that. One stat I had seen years ago was that the 500's actually won more races than the Daytona's in the 2 year span but I find that hard to believe.

Of Isaac's victories, only one came in a Dodge Daytona, and none were in the '70 season.  His only wing car victory came at the Texas 500 in December of '69.  I suppose that means that the remainder of his '69 Dodge victories were in a Charger 500.  Bobby only drove the Daytona in 22 races between late '69 and all of '70, and fared well overall despite having only one win to show for it.

Danny, I think the C500 actually has a much better racing record than the Daytona.  Something like 22 victories for the C500, only 6 for the Daytona.  While the 500 wasn't as fast on the superspeedways as the Daytona, it was a great short track car - plus, Bobby Isaac was a short track genius.

There's a great summary of Ford & Chrysler's Aero Cars racing results at:

http://aerowarriors.com/nawtables.html

Were the Daytona's used much on the short tracks?

Not really.  If there was no aero advantage, the long nose was actually a hindrance.  After all, Rubbin's racin', and you need the chrome horn on short tracks...  The rule of thumb was, no wing cars on a track less than 1 mile in distance.

[hemigeno]

Did you know that Bobby Isaac won the 70 Nascar championship.....drove a wing car on a few races but most of his wins came in a 70 Charger.....which beat the wing cars. Look it up...it's a fact. 

Hey Don,

Isaac actually won more short track races in '69 when he drove the '69 C500 - 15 race wins in '69 vs. only 11 in 1970.  Plus, of the 11 1970 short track wins, at least THREE of them were won in a 1969 C500...

Could be that the '70 Charger slowed him down??   

[Ghoste]

That's kind of what I thought.  I suppose the publicity was winning the superspeedways, especially the Daytona 500, and everything else was just filler to the Big 3.
Kind of like Pearson in 66.  Most of his wins were in a Coronet but try and find pics of it.  Plenty of him in that fastback Charger though.

[nascarxx29]

http://www.floridastockcars.com/gallery3/v/Daytona/Talmadge+Prince+was+killed+in+a+1970+Daytona+qualifier___.jpg.html

[moparstuart]

Did you know that Bobby Isaac won the 70 Nascar championship.....drove a wing car on a few races but most of his wins came in a 70 Charger.....which beat the wing cars. Look it up...it's a fact.  

Hey Don,

Isaac actually won more short track races in '69 when he drove the '69 C500 - 15 race wins in '69 vs. only 11 in 1970.  Plus, of the 11 1970 short track wins, at least THREE of them were won in a 1969 C500...

Could be that the '70 Charger slowed him down??  


e

we all know what car he took to bonneville