Some Challenges Today Look A Lot Like Petty Era

In the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon wrote “…there is nothing new under the sun.” That thought hit me numerous times as I researched for our recent series on Richard Petty. There were challenges experienced during “The King’s” heyday we’re experiencing again.

A dominating champion- It may not have been an entirely bad thing, if only for the fact Petty experienced a more widespread acceptance in his day than Jimmie Johnson does today. At the same time, you had to know not everyone was thrilled at the prospect of Petty stinking up the show on a weekly basis.

Of his seven titles, only one race was really close- 1979, when Petty scratched out his last over Darrell Waltrip. In 1964, Petty beat out Ned Jarrett by well over 5,000 points. In that dominating season of ‘67, Petty topped James Hylton by early 6,000, and only a total of 10 drivers won races that year. In his run of 1971, Petty cruised past Hylton again, and only three of the top ten drivers in points actually won a race that year!

Even attempts to “Petty proof” the system fell flat in 1974. In the first year of the system NASCAR uses today, Petty easily won over Dave Marcis in 1975. Only seven drivers won races in that year.

I could re-visit a topic tiring to some critics, that back in this era it was not uncommon for only a handful of racers to be on the lead lap when the race ended. It’s just in that day, there tended to be greater disparities between drivers in terms of equipment. Today, admittedly, we have a tighter field because of the car and regulations surrounding it.

Boycotts- Remember the story of the Hemi engine and how Bill France outlawed it in 1965? It led to the pullout of a manufacturer and the boycott of its most popular driver.

As you can imagine, the racing public did not take it well. Could you imagine only watching Fords and Mercury’s winning week in and week out? Furthermore, you not only had Petty gone, but other stars like Fireball Roberts and Joe Weatherly were dead, and another, Curtis Turner was serving a ban from racing for trying to get the drivers to join the Teamsters at the beginning of the decade.

Falling track attendance got France’s attention. He relented, and not only did Petty return from a short stint in drag racing, Pops Turner was re-instated as well.

Knee Jerk Reactions and Sketchy Enforcement- The policies that brought about the 1965 boycott were, in part, fueled by a desire to get Chevrolet participating again and in some eyes, pacify Ford.

My old buddy Mad Mikie at laidbackracin.com likes to talk about “Mr. Magoo” serving as post-race inspector. Apparently, he was just coming into his own during this era, where a blind eye was turned to regulations on a number of mechanical rules.

Economic Hardships- Remember the gas shortages of the 1970’s? Races were being shortened to save fuel. It’s also not hard to see in this era, a greater chasm between NASCAR’s “haves” and “have nots.”

Now, before you fire off any nasty comments, please understand his is no attempt at giving NASCAR a pass, nor does it minimize today’s challenges.

My point today is this: just like the world outside of NASCAR, nearly every problem we have now, was manifest in some way, shape or form in an earlier generation. Guess what? We survived. So, you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not into the doom and gloom scenarios. I will be more than willing to bet we’ll still be talking NASCAR in 10 years. Change will come, because it must. Remember who doesn’t get the money we don’t spend on the track, whose pocket isn’t lined if networks can easily negotiate cheaper contracts for race coverage. With the problem of yesteryear, we see in some instances, the troubles ran their course. In others, it meant the Daytona brass has to change horses in midstream.

Coming from the stick and ball world perspective, I am thankful that NASCAR is willing to make change more quickly than others. To me, its insane that in Major League Baseball, you have the designated hitter in one league, and you have to suffer with bad hitting by pitchers in the other. We won’t even get into the response with glacier-like speed by baseball to the steroid mess. That’s another story for another time.