Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 92 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 20, 40 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.
20 Years Ago — 2006
News: National Sprint Tour Founder and President Fred Brownfield served notice the traveling winged· sprint-car group is going nowhere soon with the announcement the series will pay $2.4 million to its contracted teams during the next three seasons.
Brownfield formed the NST in a matter of days in late December and has had the group on the road for the first part of this season.
This season, the point fund will pay $700,000, with $800,000 in 2007 and $900,000 in 2008. The series champion will earn $150,000.
There are currently 11 teams that have competed in every NST event, and the top 15 in points will receive awards at the end of the season.
“Racing these sprint cars across the country week in, week out is a very expensive proposition,” said team owner and driver Steve Kinser. “The point fund will sure give a lot of our race teams more financial resources to allow them to continue to have the best equipment and the best people working for them.
“Every team in this series is 100-percent committed to it, and $2,400,000 allows the series to reward that commitment,” Kinser added. “On the other hand, we were all committed to the series before we had a point fund, so this is just like icing on the cake.”
“For having such a short time to accomplish things, we are pleased with what we have done so far” Brownfield said.
Driver Danny Lasoski said the announcement gives the series stability.
“I think the largest impact will be the credibility it adds to Fred Brownfield and the NST as an established series,” Lasoski said. “The three-year deal proves the NST is here to stay and will continue to grow from here on out.”
Winners: Matt Kenseth came out on top in a 100-mile shootout against fellow Roush Racing driver Jamie McMurray to score his second Nextel Cup victory of the season Sunday at Dover Int’l Speedway.
The Neighborhood Excellence 400 came down to a three-way slugfest that brought the crowd to its feet, cheering for their favorite as the race came to its conclusion.
With less than 10 laps to go, Kenseth, McMurray and Richard Childress Racing’s Kevin Harvick were locked in a heated battle all around the Monster Mile, using every trick they knew and trying to get an edge on the tricky one-mile concrete oval.
Kenseth made a clean pass of McMurray on lap 397. Asked if he would have been willing to use the front bumper to move his teammate out of the way; Kenseth replied, “No, it’s not really that kind of a track. To be really honest with you, if it was switched around and Jamie was second and Harvick was first, I would’ve raced both the same way.
“I think you should race people the way you want to be raced. I don’t think either one of those guys would’ve punted me out of the way. At this kind of track if you get into somebody you’re gonna wreck ’em.”
The cream rose to the top as NASCAR’s super teams – Roush Racing, RCR and Hendrick Motorsports – occupied the top six places. Harvick and Jeff Burton finished third and fourth for RCR, while Kyle Busch was fifth – one position ahead of Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson.
40 Years Ago — 1986
News: A proposal for an annual Indy Car race in downtown Dallas hit a snag last week when state highway commissioners questioned whether they can legally close a freeway access road for the three-day event.
Buddy Boren, an organizer for the Spirit of Dallas Grand Prix, asked the commission to close the Stem mons Freeway access road near Reunion Arena to traffic so it could be used as part of the 1.7-mile race course that goes around Reunion Arena. Boren said Championship Auto Racing Teams requires “some sort of straightaway in order to go up in speed for passing” for the three days of racing, scheduled for June 19-21, 1987.
But state highway commission chairman Robert C. Lanier said it’s illegal to race on state roads and that violators could be sentenced to up to six months in jail and fined $500.
He said the U.S. Department of Transportation also opposes the idea because it fears that freeway motorists trying to catch a glimpse of the racers will create a massive traffic jam. However, Boren said organizers plan· to have a six-foot chain link fence with a canvas screen erected in order to deter onlookers from the highway.
“Our problem is that we have a state law that prohibits racing on highways,” Lanier said. Commission member Ray Stoker Jr. said be would like an attorney general’s opinion and assurances from the Department of Transportation that “they won’t cut off our money” before he votes to close the road.
The commission decided to study the request and take it up again at its June meeting. Boren, calling the road-closure question “critical,” said “without the access road, we can’t hold the race on that site.
Boren and his associates, Dallas businessman Jody Tallal and Christopher Pook of Long Beach, Calif., organizer of the 12-year-old Grand Prix of Long Beach, signed a 10-year contract with the City of Dallas on April 10 to hold an Indy CART event. The first seven years of the contract are firm, with three one-year options for Boren’s group.
Winners: The ‘first $4 million purse in Indianapolis 500-Mile Race history came only a year after the first $3 million jackpot.
Winner Bobby Rahal picked up a check for $581,062 for the Trues ports team-another new record–out of the total melon of $4,001,450.
Records that fell were the total purse of $3,271,025 paid out in 1985 and$517,662.50 won by Danny Sullivan last year. Rahal said, “It’s kind of neat to celebrate like this, even If we couldn’t have another 200 guests.”
There were some 200 drivers, car owners, crew members, members of the news media and others on hand at the Speedway golf course perimeter outside the Speedway Motel for the reception, in contrast to the 2,QOO-plus usually attending the Victory Banquet.
Thanks for making May 31 a most special day for me,” Rahal continued, “But, I’d especially like to thank the safety crew in turn-4 for cleaning up a six-lap crash in four laps.”
Australian chief mechanic Steve Horne said “Yesterday was for me the fulfillment of a particular ambition … One person had faith in me-that was Jim Trueman.”
Trueman, owner of Rahal’s car, was unable to attend but sent a message of congratulations.
Kevin Cogan, passed by Rahal just before the start/finish line on a restart for the last two laps, earned $253,362 for his Patrick team. His attitude, despite the disappointment of losing, was still upbeat. ·
He said it is a “fantastic feeling” knowing that every time he climbs in his race car, he is a potential winner. He captured the PPG Cup season opener at Phoenix, April 6.
60 Years Ago— 1966
News: Ned Jarrett, two-time NASCAR Grand National for late model stock cars at champion, said in Camden, S.C., Saturday that he would retire as a driver at the end of the 1966 season and take a position with a marketing firm in Greenville, S. C.
Jarrett, 38, won last year’s NASCAR Grand National title after winning it the first time in 1961. Earlier, he had won the NASCAR title for drivers of sportsman cars. He won the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway last Labor Day to cap a season in which he won 12 other races and $78,000.
Jarrett has raced infrequently this year. He said he plans to run in the remainder of the big races this year, but will leave the sport at the end of the season.
Winners: Pint-sized Mario Andretti ran away from the field to win the 17th annual Rex Mays Memorial 100-mile National Championship race at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds.
In fact, the defending USAC national champion never had an anxious moment from the time he led the 22-car field to the green until he breezed home in the Dean Van Lines Hawk-Ford to collect $11,577 of the record $41,060 purse.
It was Andretti’s first championship of the year and the second of his career.
Roger McCluskey squeaked past Joe Leonard in the final lap to take second place. Both drivers were at the wheel of All-American Eagle-Fords.
Andretti, who broke Parnelli Jones’ one-lap record in qualifications with a 32.217 clocking (111.099 mph), toured the route in one hour, two minutes and 43.525 seconds, some five minutes off the track record at an average speed of 95.65 mph.