Bobby Allison won 10 races in 1972 driving the Richard Howard Monte Carlos that were maintained at Junior Johnson's shop with Herb Nab serving as crew chief. Junior had Banjo Matthews incorporate the truck arm rear suspension on the Monte Carlos that Bobby drove. This was among the first cars coming out of Banjo's shop to get away from the leaf spring rear suspension. The Monte Carlos that Bobby ran for Junior were actually cars that ran the previous year with Charlie Glotzbach as car #3 and car #98 with LeRoy Yarbrough in one race and according to Charlie these cars were built at Juniors shop right behind his house. Junior has said in another article that they were using Monte Carlo front snouts and chassis. Junior had to get permission from Nascar to cut the snout due to some wheelbase issues. Junior and Richard Howard decided not to display the Monte Carlos that they ran in 1971 as show cars, instead they approached Bobby at the end of the season at Rockingham because Junior knew Bobby had the skill and determination to win races along with the fact that Bobby had a sponsor and Junior needed both a driver and a sponsor. So the decision was made to go for the championship in 1972 with Bobby and the Coke sponsorship. Charlie Glotzbach could definitely get the job done, but he brought no sponsorship money to the table and Junior has stated the decision to drop him had nothing to do with his ability as a driver. Talked to Bobby and he said the Monte Carlos he drove for Junior in 1972 were rear steer cars. Charlie Glotzbach told me that Herb Nab and Turkey Minton with help, built the Monte Carlos for Junior. Richard Howard wanted to boost the attendance and Robert Yates suggested they build a Chevrolet. Junior felt the Monte Carlo would be the body to run. The 427 Chevrolet engines were built by Robert who ran the engine program and worked at Juniors from 1971 to 1976. The #28 Monte Carlo Fred Lorenzen is driving in this race was a car Hoss Ellington purchased from Richard Howard. This car was built at Bobby's shop, sold to Richard Howard and had won the Trenton Northern 300 as the #12 Coke Machine on July 16, 1972 when he drove for Richard Howard/Junior Johnson. Bobby told Junior that his dry sump Bobby Allison built car would be better than Juniors wet sump engine because of the Trenton right turn configuration of the track going down the backstretch. Jim Paschal drove the car one time, May 28, 1972 at the World 600. Hoss first ran the car the week after Bobby won Trenton with Fred Lorenzen driving in the Dixie 500 at Atlanta on July 23. On May 7, 2018, I actually called Bobby and he filled in the blanks for me on this car. I had put off calling Bobby because I was so nervous but finally got up the courage and man, it was worth the wait. Bobby is still as sharp as ever on some of the details. I talked to Charlie Glotzbach on 5/12/2018. If these two drivers were in their prime, they could compete and win against the best there is right now.
6 май 2018
