Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 90 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 15, 30 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.
15 Years Ago — 2010
News: A legend in the NASCAR community known to most simply as Coach, Les Richter died Saturday after a long illness. He was 79.
A veteran motorsports executive, Richter became the executive director of Riverside Int’l Raceway in 1959. Two years later, he became the president and general manager of RIR, a position that he held until1983. He is credited with making RIR consistently profitable through his nationally known innovations and creativity, including the creation and promotion of the NASCAR Motor Trend 500 in 1963, and the planning and execution of the raceway’s $3.6 million
improvement plan in 1969.
Richter’s 11-year association with NASCAR began in 1983, and in 1986 he became NASCAR’s executive vice president of competition. In 1992, Richter was named senior vice president of operations for NASCAR.
Richter recently served as vice president of special projects for International Speedway Corp., the parent company of Les Richter Auto Club Speedway. He was based at Auto Club Speedway, a two-mile, state-of-the-art superspeedway near Fontana, Calif.
The current trophy for the Auto Club 500 is named the Richter Trophy as a lasting tribute to his contributions to Auto Club Speedway and the world of motorsports.
Richter’s hard work and dedication for the Penske family resulted in the opening of the speedway and marked the return of professional oval-track auto racing to the Southern California region. On June 22, 1997, he served as the first grand marshal for the California 500.
A native of Fresno, Calif., Richter graduated from Fresno High School where he served as student body president and captain of the football team. Richter graduated from the University of California at Berkeley where he was valedictorian of the 1952 graduating class. As an All-American linebacker, Richter’s football heroics led to his eventual election to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Richter was the first player chosen in the regular draft of the National Football League in 1952. The New York Yankees Professional Football Club, which moved to Texas that year to become the Dallas Texans, selected him. On June 13, 1952, the Los Angeles Rams traded 11 players and draft choices to the Dallas Texans for the rights to Richter – an NFL record. Richter went on to play for the Rams for nine years, making all-pro as a linebacker for eight years.
Winners: Billy Moyer walked a tight rope to victory in Sunday afternoon’s rain-delayed DIRTcar Racing-sanctioned Dirt Late Model Dream XVI at Eldora Speedway.
Living up to his “Mr. Smooth” nickname, the 52-year-old dirt Late Model Hall of Famer from Batesville, Ark., overtook Ray Cook for the lead on a lap-20 restart and never made a mistake the remainder of the 100-lap distance.
He tamed a slick daytime track surface dominated by a precarious top lane to pocket the prestigious race’s $100,000 winner’s check for the second time in his legendary career.
In a race that saw cars repeatedly sustain right-rear body damage from bouts with the outside wall at the half-mile oval, Moyer got his Clements-powered Victory Circle Chassis to the checkered flag virtually unscathed.
“Your mind’s gotta be razor sharp to run on that ledge for a hundred laps like that and never bobble,” said Moyer, describing the thin cushion. “This track is like running on an ice cube. You just slide in there and time it just perfectly to where you get your right front on that lip first. If you get in there a little bit too hard, you’re in the wall over that little berm.”
Moyer, who started from the pole, weathered a mid-race challenge from 2008 World 100 winner Shane Clanton before pulling away from Cook during the final laps. He crossed the finish about a half straightaway ahead of Cook, who started second and led laps 1-20 in his battle-scarred MasterSbilt car 19th, benefitted from the race’s attrition to place a quiet third in Clint Bowyer’s Warrior machine.
Chris Madden started 21st and wasn’t far behind McDowell throughout the distance en route
to a fourth-place finish in his Team Zero by Bloomquist car, while Madden’s chassis builder, five-time Dream champion Scott Bloomquist, completed the top five after recovering from a lap-75 pit stop to change a flat right-rear tire.
30 Years Ago — 1995
News: Now that the hubub surrounding the month of May and the Indy 500 has had 3 weeks to percolate down, USAC Vice President and Technical Director Mike Devin took some time to say what he thinks about the letters and the columns and the rest of the fallout from the 79th Indianapolis 500, including the rules package advanced by IndyCar.
The rules first.
“That’s all politically motivated,” Devin said of the rules announced by IndyCarlast month. The rules package announced by the sanctioning body closely resembled that submitted by the Indy Racing League early this year, which was widely criticized at the time by IndyCar loyalists. “We’re going to stay with the same cars (in 1996),” Devin said. “Reynard and Lola already told us they were going to honor their existing customers , and the CART (IndyCar) guys would get their cars first, which is only right because they’re existing customers.
“If Reynard and Lola build cars, they wouldn’t have any ready for Orlando and Phoenix, and maybe not by the speedway in May.”
Devin said that situation would put the IRL in a bad way.
“If we change the rules, we don’t have any cars,” Devin said. “It’s all politically motivated.
Winners: After 133 laps, Saturday night’s True Value/USAC Silver Crown Championship boiled down to one small piece of real estate in Richmond Int’l Raceway’s third turn.
Jack Hewitt had it, Randy Tolsma wanted it.
Hewitt kept it, squeezing Tolsma to the bottom of the track and coming off the fourth turn in front.
At the checkered flag, Hewitt held on by two to lengths to win the inaugural Silver Crown event on Paul Sawyer’s picturesque three-quarter mile D-shaped raceway in front of an estimated 17,500 fans.
“I was going to go in low (to turn three) because I saw Randy (Tolsma) underneath me there in turn one,” Hewitt said. “I went in so hard I got it dirt-tracking in there. I knew I had the bottom groove shut off because I was sideways and we got it through there.”
Hewitt earned $15,000 of the $75,000 USAC purse for his first Silver Crown victory on asphalt, driving Bob Hampshire’s familiar No. 63 Ford V-6-powered car.
Tolsma said he would have been better served with patience on the last lap.
“It looked like Jack was loose,” Tolsma said. “He was stepping it up the track there in the corners. I should have been patient and not gone in low. I should have waited and come up underneath him on the way out, but when you’re that close and have one lap to go … I got down in there and had to back off. That little bit was enough to make me push a little and Jack had enough to come out the other side.”
Hewitt, who started 25th, got the lead in a great dice in traffic with polesitter Jim Keeker, who took the lead from Chuck Gurney on the fifth lap and held it for the next 112 circuits. Hewitt poked his nose underneath Keeker in a huge traffic jam and came out in front when Keeker got caught behind the slower car of George Snider on the outside.
60 Years Ago— 1965
News: Long-standing differences regarding racing stock car specifications were resolved here last week as officials of the National Ass’n for Stock Car Auto Racing of Daytona Beach, Fla., and the United States Auto Club of Indianapolis agreed on a single set of rules.
The new rules are effective immediately on both circuits and will prevail through the 1966 season. The joint announcement was made by Henry Banks, USAC’s Director of Competition, and Bill France, NASCAR president.
The changes are:
A minimum weight limit of 9.36 pounds per cubic inch of engine displacement for a car ready to run with a full load of fuel, oil and water. (ie: a 427″ car must weigh 4,000 pounds.)
The hemi engine will be permitted on NASCAR tracks or over one mile {there are four) in the 1965 Plymouth Fury, 1965 Dodge 880 and Dodge Polara. All 1964 Dodges competing on these tracks must use the “wedge” engine.
The hemi engine will be permitted in the Plymouth Belvedere and Dodge Coronet on all USAC tracks and on NASCAR tracks of one mile and less and on road courses.
These changes will permit cars such as the 1965 Chevrolet to compete with a 427 cubic inch engine so long as they adhere to the weight formula.
USAC will permit the use of the Hemi engine in the 1964 Plymouths and Dodges as it did last year as long as the wheel base is more than 116 inches.
France and Banks announced that In 1966 a joint committee composed of officials from both organizations will categorize for competition all American stock: production cars with the new minimum weight formula to prevail.
The four categories will be known as 1) Standard. 2) Intermediate. 3) Compact. 4) Sports.
“One of the objectives of the committee, “Banks said, “will be to eliminate the high-cost, low-volume engine from competition.”
When advance data on a car is not available, categorization will follow the actual introduction of the car.
In 1966 the Intermediate category with a cubic-inch limit of 405 will be permitted to run on oval tracks longer than one mile in the same contest with Standard cars.
Numerous other technical differences were reported resolved between the organizations. “I am happy to see that for the first time in stock car racing history major organization have adopted uniform specifications,” France said.
Early reaction to the announcement came from Chrysler. Robert M. Rodger, Chrysler’s Special Car Manager, said the firm wanted to study the changes before making any decision on whether to return to the NASCAR circuit.
Chrysler, he said, “was pleased to learn that an agreement has been reached between USAC and NASCAR on stock car racing rules, but we have not as yet received an official copy of the new rules.
“Until we have a chance to examine and appraise the full meaning and possible application or them, we have no announcement to make concerning a change in our plans for the balance of 1965 or about 1966.”
Winners: Bobby Kinser, the current 1965 SCIRA point leader, jumped into a borrowed car the Paul Mead Chevy, a former USAC sprinter, and won his third straight SCIRA 25-lap supermodified feature at the quarter-mile Paragon Speedway, Saturday night.
Kinser’s own car, the Fox Pontiac, was sidelined during qualifications with mechanical ills as was four other machines, the old nemesis being ring pinion gear trouble.
In the first heat race of the supers the action was galore going into the third tum on the first lap Leon Rose throttle stuck on his Buick Super with his car going over the rear of Rex Mitchell’s machine as the field was slowing down. Jack Zeigler went over the car of Bobby Brooker landing upside down on the track, thus four more cars were eliminated.
Some of the drivers grabbed up rides in other cars for the rest of the evening’s events.
In the feature, Kinser jumped out in front on the first lap and was never seriously challenged for the lead as he enjoyed better than a straightaway lead at the checker over Frank Hollingworth.
Roy Young finished third.
