The worst week in the history of American motorsports -- Fireball Roberts' fiery crash on May 24, and then six days later the fiery crash that killed Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald at Indy.
Classic film!!! Richard , Lee & Kyle Petty from 60 years ago, in those AWESOME cars!!! It is so sad how Glenn 'Fireball' Roberts died from his burns from an accident in this race , some 5- werks after it took place... These people had and still have incredible courage.... Thank You for posting this....
@Jeff Kopis Have you watched any World of Outlaws races lately? Kyle Larson is kicking major ass in that series, without, you know, power steering, air conditioning etc. There will never be drivers like Pearson, Petty, Eannhardt, Baker etc because the times have changed too much. But shitting on one driver to prove another driver is superior is not really conductive to an intelligent conversation.
When racing was pure. Only real cars were raced. Real America. When drivers built their own cars for fun and raced on weekends with the pit crew was cousin Eddie, your brothers oldest boy, your wifes brothers. These guys did it for fun and bragging rights and could win a little money for doing it. Then came the BIG money and evil soon followed and ruined it for everyone.
This was the year Chrysler came out with the 426 Hemi. No surprise about the finish. They clearly had the best engines for stock car racing... even though I don't think the engine was actually available at the time in street cars.
One of the worst weeks in American racing. Just a few days after Fireball Roberts' crash was the double tragedy of Dave McDonald and Eddie Sachs in the Indy 500.
I can't believe Petty or France let that rascal Pascal win. The sound of those engines.....thanks for the post. Tell me you taped those Bud Linderman weeklies....I did, on VHS. Gone, gone, gone.
No team orders in NASCAR. No radios, either at that time. I think the radios started coming in the 70s. I seem to remember seeing a film of Johnny Rutherford coming into the pits at Indy saying, "I need a right front tire!"
@IT'SME , he was caught up in a wreck, early in the race and his car caught fire and he was badly burned, and died a few weeks later in June of 1964, from complications of severe burns
@radioguy1620 . . . Interesting that you made an astute observation about that, and it was not lost with Ford, either; as the Ford Galaxy was larger than the Plymouth Belvedere. I recall reading many years ago that with Plymouth's dominance at the Daytona 500, that Ford had considered taking its compact sedan, the "Fairlane," stretching the chassis and body a couple of inches to meet the NASCAR specs, then manufacture the minimum production to meet NASCAR regulations, which may have been a thousand units at that time, with its 427 engine. Can you imagine what it would have been like to have a 3,000 pound car with a 427 on-the-road? Insane! The drum brakes of that era would not have been up to the job of stopping that car. Ford did not pursue that idea to production. But, it illustrates just how heavily involved the auto manufacturers could be with some forms of motorsports.
This was back when the manufacturers didn’t cry about who won they just built better, not like today @ manufactures whine and the third (Ford ) ends up 500 lbs heavier and 2 inches taller
Smokey Yunick was driving back from Indy (where he failed to qualify) when he heard about Fireball, who was a good friend. Yunick swore he was not ever going to race a stock car again unless he he was allowed to put in safety fuel cells. Up to that point NASCAR required steel tanks.
Steven Chappell depends on who is broadcasting it. Actual televised broadcasts like for ABC or etc will show. As for marketing broadcasts like this one ( made by Chrysler). It depends on what they want. if they felt it was too much for their product to be associated with. then no footage. darlington's and Indy's production company I think did the best for non televised production. they usually showed the most and used the least amount of "fluff".
It must have been the same company as I've heard that narrator on the indy shows, too. I do not that for the 1958 Indy they showed the crash where Pat O'Connor was killed but did not say he died. It seems inconsistent.
Ironic. But his nickname actually came from his baseball pitching back in high school. I cried the day he died, and his team mate Pearson decided to retire at the end of the season, then he was also injured badly, and decided to call it a day.
