I have many fond memories of Rockingham over the years. I’ll share a couple of them here and hope you find them enjoyable.
The year of 1965 was the year Big Bill France outlawed the Chrysler Corporation Hemi engines which meant my driver, Richard Petty, had gone drag race in a Plymouth Barracuda. I attended several of those drag races but it wasn’t the same as the oval racing. Took some films as well, one of which NASCAR bought the rights to a couple of years ago to use in some program they were doing.
When the news of a new track being build just across the South Carolina/North Carolina border, about 100 miles from me, we were excited, even more so when Big Bill said the hemis could return on tracks of one mile or less. Rockingham was ONE mile. My friends and I got really excited and started planning our trip.
At the time I was working for the local Dodge dealer in the parts department. Part of my job was delivering parts to other dealers and such was the case on October 29th, the day after my birthday. As I was driving that Dodge van there was an intersection that was blind because of the large buildings on each corner. I had the green light and never saw the ’64 Chevy Impala speeding into the intersection. In fact, I didn’t see him when he hit me. That van went flying into the air and came down nose first after taking down the traffic lights. I was knocked out but I’m not sure how long. When I awaked, two policemen were hold me as I sat on the sidewalk. I look at what was left of the van and wondered how the boss was going to take that. Then I saw the Impala which was a total loss for sure.
My face was on fire from what we learned was battery acid as the battery in the van was located behind the drivers seat and had broken lose and exploded covering me in acid. That was not a fun feeling.
I could hear sirens from ambulances on the way but as the hospital was only about six blocks away, one of the policemen put me in his cruiser and took me to the emergeny room. Upon arrival a doctor and two or three nurses rushed over to take care of the acid and the blood coming from where the windshield had shatters and splattered me with glass. There was much confusion going on but when I heard they would need to keep me a few days, I jumped up and said “that won’t happen”. After all, we were leaving in the morning for race weekend at what would eventually become know as “The Rock”. After several minutes of arguing with the doctors, I got up and walked out.
Saturday morning we set out with our tent and other necessities for the weekend. We arrived at the track and set up camp against the fence in turn four. I reallyu don’t remember much of Saturday other then it was a little cold sleeping in that tent.
Sunday dawned bright and clear and we were up with the dawn. We walked the fence behind the garage until we got to the Petty team Richard was there with the car and we called him. He walked over and spoke with us for awhile. As we walked back to our tent, I started to feel very dizzy and weak.
I’ll skip the part about breakfast and all leading up to the race and just tell you how excited I was when they fired the engines. Richard was on the pole so I was super excited. The green flag dropped and I was at least as excited as my first race because it had been so long since I had seen that.
About lap 100, after Richard had crashed and taken over the other Petty car driven by Jim Paschal, I got very week and my head was about to explode. I lay down in the back seat of the car after taking some meds the hospital had given me. When I awoke there was 30 laps to go. The race ended with Curtis Turner winning. As we always did, we went into the pits afterwards and talked to Richard which made it a great day.
One of the special things that happened at that track was the year that the Saturday before the race was my birthday. I was working commercial radio then so I had pit access. I ran into Richard (on purpose of course) Saturday morning and told him there was going to be a birthday party for me about 5pm at our motorhome parked just outside the pits. I thought nothing more about that until we were about to cut the cake and walking up to our motorhome were Richard and Dale Inman. Quite a birthday that one!
Many other stories come to mind from Rockingham, but we will save those for another day.
Photo Credit (cover): Charlotte Observer
Great story. That wreck sounds awful.
That’s how we were about racing back then, and you captured it perfectly, Tim. “I don’t care if I’m dead – there’s a RACE TOMORROW!
It didn’t matter if the race lasted five hours, half of which would feature nothing of consequence. You cooked up your own plotlines, involving your favorite driver(s) or somebody else if yours had already blown up or wrecked. You walked around, met people you sort-of knew, debated the merits of Bud vs. Pabst, and it was all special. You came away remembering the best battles for the lead, even if they didn’t happen in the final 25 or even 50 laps. That was what it meant to be a race fan.
I went to a short-track sprint car race last night (and it this just tails off at some point, it’s because I didn’t get home until 2:00, which is a different deal at 76 than it was at 26). The winner ran off and hit, but there were battles for second and throughout the top 10, and one guy started 25th and finished 6th, in a 20-lap feature. That was an entertaining race for a true, traditional fan. I don’t miss the fact that NASCAR is off today.
Thanks, Tim.
Wow on that accident and another Wow on Richard and Dale Inman coming to your party. You know, Tim, I love stories like this so I hope I do get to read another one before long. Races were not broadcast on TV until much later years so we fans always gathered info from written sources.
Thank you so much for sharing.