Finished up my work at UNC Charlotte today.
Late in the week I noticed a couple of mint condition Dodge Daytonas and Plymouth Road Runner Superbirds on the street that my hotel was on.
Leaving my hotel parking lot and heading to the University this morning, I saw several of these cars in another hotel parking lot. Did a u-turn to come back and take a photo. Once I entered the other hotel parking lot – I realized there were dozens and dozens of these cars. Along with signs at the hotel about a MOPAR classic car meeting. Obviously, I took a few more pictures.
Growing up, Mom and Dad took me to races at Charlotte, Rockingham and Darlington. At Darlington, we always got seats in the Robert E. Lee Grandstand.
Saturday nights, I’d go to the local races at the track on Doc Bennett Road with Isaac Young who drove his gas station wrecker. We'd go into the infield and provided towing for cars that were damaged during the race. Pretty cool stuff for a 14 year old.
The glory days of NASCAR were from the mid-60s to the mid-70s. Factory sponsorship of teams abounded. Even now-defunct AMC was heavily involved.
Back then, the racing cars really were based on stock American cars. A certain number of vehicles had to be sold to the public to qualify as a manufactured stock vehicle to be eligible for NASCAR entry. The Ford Torino Talladega and Dodge Daytona were built specifically to be sold and qualify for NASCAR racing.
When I was a freshman at NC State, a sophmore who lived downstairs was the newphew of Ralph Moody. He was majoring in Mechnical Engineering. The car he drove was a Torino Taladega. But it looked different. Not different like the little 'tuner' cars today with all the junk bolted on - it looked like a regular Torino - just different. Turns out, it was one of the prototype Talladegas that was hand built in 1968 when the cars were being developed. His uncle let him have it so he'd have a car to drive at school. I remember it was serial number 003.
It was quite a neat collection of cars I got to see this morning. I wish I had more time to look at them but I had to get to work.
3 comments:
Pretty cool, but damn those cars are bizarre.
Dave
In the Pixar movie Cars, the veteran car (voiced by Richard Petty) is a Superbird.
Loved your dialogue with the racoon. Was also amazed by how much art activity you document down there. Notice that you live in Moncure, and keep wondering if you might be one of my MANY cousins there through Poe, Wilkie, and allied families. Found your blog by happy accident when I ran a search on Google for "County Down" AND "Chatham County," since I've been looking for info about some families that may've gone to NC from County Down in Ireland. Give me a "shout" at gstradtman@juno.com.
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