“It was a different world back then.
Fireball Roberts, Fred Lorenzen, etc.”
And Smokey Yunick. If you don’t know about Smokey’s famous escapades, read them here. They’re funny as all git out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Yunick
Here’s a little sample;
“Another Yunick improvisation was getting around the regulations specifying a maximum size for the fuel tank, by using eleven foot (three meter) coils of 2-inch (5-centimeter) diameter tubing for the fuel line to add about 5 gallons (19 liters) to the car’s fuel capacity. Once, NASCAR officials came up with a list of nine items for Yunick to fix before the car would be allowed on the track. The suspicious NASCAR officials had removed the tank for inspection. Yunick started the car with no gas tank and said “Better make it ten,”[3] and drove it back to the pits. He used a basketball in the fuel tank which could be inflated when the car’s fuel capacity was checked and deflated for the race.”
The old guys were drivers and storylellers.
I remember Benny Parsons talking about Richard Petty and saying that someone asked him if Petty was really that good. Benny said “Nah, he just got lucky 200 times”.
Yes I remember him. I used to subscribe to Mechanics Illustrated just to read his and Tom McCahill’s stories.
I think McCahill was the best writer I ever remember.