NASCAR when it was cool...

[ChrisV]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oMt0LhpJGlE

Cheap helmets, no gloves or fire suits, lap belts, and drifting through the faster corners. Take note of the off course excursions...

[Secret Chimp]

Hell yes. I could actually watch this.

[SVT666]

I love this.  I wish there was some form of racing today that was similar to that.  Don't say Touring Cars either, because those cars are heavily modified.  I want stock suspension, stock brakes, stock engine, and stock interior.

[deesea]

I love this.  I wish there was some form of racing today that was similar to that.  Don't say Touring Cars either, because those cars are heavily modified.  I want stock suspension, stock brakes, stock engine, and stock interior.

illegal street racing? .

[the Teuton]

The only cars slightly comparable to this today are Australian V8 Supercars.

[Soup DeVille]

If anybody has any doubt that NASCAR was once indeed cool, they need to read Tom Wolfe's short story The Last American Hero.

[S204STi]

I love this.  I wish there was some form of racing today that was similar to that.  Don't say Touring Cars either, because those cars are heavily modified.  I want stock suspension, stock brakes, stock engine, and stock interior.

SCCA ProSolo?

[ArchBishop]

When I think about *yawn* NASCAR, it doesn't get my heart pumping. I'll check that video out though.

[Laconian]

I don't know, it's not the same without exploding graphics, quintuple split screen and an OSD of the driver's asscrack temperature.

                 


Actually this is pretty cool, thanks. But since this is a highlight reel, perhaps the live event would've still been boring by my tastes.

[280Z Turbo]

I love this.  I wish there was some form of racing today that was similar to that.  Don't say Touring Cars either, because those cars are heavily modified.  I want stock suspension, stock brakes, stock engine, and stock interior.

Dude...

Not even SCCA Improved Touring and Showroom Stock classes are "stock".

[280Z Turbo]

I don't know, it's not the same without exploding graphics, quintuple split screen and an OSD of the driver's asscrack temperature.

                 


Actually this is pretty cool, thanks. But since this is a highlight reel, perhaps the live event would've still been boring by my tastes.

They didn't have Fox's in track camera "Digger" either.

[Rupert]

Sweet.

[Rich]

I love this.  I wish there was some form of racing today that was similar to that.  Don't say Touring Cars either, because those cars are heavily modified.  I want stock suspension, stock brakes, stock engine, and stock interior.

I agree, and I want that series to have good TV coverage too.

I'm still a NASCAR fan though.. I would be more of a fan of other racing series if they had better TV coverage.  Seeing cars going fast aroudn a track and on the edge of control is what I love to see.  Rally, SCCA, SPEED, dirt track, are all awesome, it's just that it's easier to see NASCAR races. 


I watched a SPEED touring car race with BMWs and Acuras in the lead pack at VIR, and that was a wonderful race.

\

[JYODER240]

I love this.  I wish there was some form of racing today that was similar to that.  Don't say Touring Cars either, because those cars are heavily modified.  I want stock suspension, stock brakes, stock engine, and stock interior.

That would be fun to watch but it would never work out. I'd give most stock brakes about 5 laps.

[Cookie Monster]

That was awesome! I wish NASCAR was like that now. Now it's just a boring race where the only things that are interesting are the crashes.
And Touring Car races are awesome to watch. I wish SPEED would cover more than NASCAR. I want to see more rallying and touring car races.

[omicron]

The only cars slightly comparable to this today are Australian V8 Supercars.

The V8 Utes series or the Australian Production Car Championship are even more so - entrants' cars in both series are road-registered as far as I know, and tend to ensure as few modifications as possible.

[Nethead]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oMt0LhpJGlE

Cheap helmets, no gloves or fire suits, lap belts, and drifting through the faster corners. Take note of the off course excursions...

Good video!  Dan Gurney, driving for The Woods Brothers, won the Riverside 500 four consecutive years--at least.  His long win streak ended in 1969 when Richard Petty, driving for Petty Enterprises, won the Riverside 500 in a Torino.  Those 1965 stock cars, while built to the limits of the rules of the time (and often beyond) still had to have roll-up windows!  And most of the upholstery.

[FoMoJo]

Very nice.

The '60s were truly the golden era of motorsport.

[Nethead]

Very nice.

The '60s were truly the golden era of motorsport.

FoMoJo:  It truly was, Fo, it truly was...Guys like us never appreciated how good we had it--we thought it would just get better and better forever .  I was in junior high when it started and in the Army when it ended .  What a ride!  And the Nethead here made it thru without getting married, killed, lynched, or getting anyone pregnant --albeit not without some close calls.

And the music was even better than the cars!  The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, CSN&Y, Janice Joplin, Grace Slick, Peter Paul & Mary, The Supremes, The Temptations, Steppenwolf, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash, The Beach Boys, The Dave Clark Five, Iron Butterfly, The Monkees, The Doors, Judy Collins, and I could go on and on and on...

And history's first SuperBowl!  The Pirates shutting out the Yankees in four straight Series games !  Mohammed Ali!

"One small step for Man, one giant leap for Mankind".

The Pill !

I gotta stop myself somehow...

It never had been that good, and it ain't ever gonna be that good again...

[ChrisV]

Good video!  Dan Gurney, driving for The Woods Brothers, won the Riverside 500 four consecutive years--at least.  His long win streak ended in 1969 when Richard Petty, driving for Petty Enterprises, won the Riverside 500 in a Torino.  Those 1965 stock cars, while built to the limits of the rules of the time (and often beyond) still had to have roll-up windows!  And most of the upholstery.

Yeah, that was the era when Smokey Yunik tried to get a 7/8ths scale Impala past the scrutineers... And of course, they used custom frames and acid dipped body panels, but still, '65 was the last year for essentially stock cars. Bill France had banned the Hemi in '65 and Chrysler left NASCAR, which cause all sorts of upset with track owners, fans, and nearly caused NASCAR to go bankrupt. '66 saw France let the Hemi back in, but he started messing with the rules to favor Ford and Chevy to let Chrysler teams know who was really in charge. And the cars were never ever even close to stock again.

[Nethead]

Yeah, that was the era when Smokey Yunik tried to get a 7/8ths scale Impala past the scrutineers... And of course, they used custom frames and acid dipped body panels, but still, '65 was the last year for essentially stock cars. Bill France had banned the Hemi in '65 and Chrysler left NASCAR, which cause all sorts of upset with track owners, fans, and nearly caused NASCAR to go bankrupt. '66 saw France let the Hemi back in, but he started messing with the rules to favor Ford and Chevy to let Chrysler teams know who was really in charge. And the cars were never ever even close to stock again.

ChrisV:  Chris, I first became interested in NASCAR around the fifth grade, when Pontiacs were the dominant stockers on the ovals--and had the big-name drivers of that era (Fireball Roberts, Joe Weatherly, etc.).  I think the first real breach from true "stock" (as in stripped down production cars) cars came in the 1963 season when Chevrolet was allowed to use an engine (their 427) that they did not sell in any production model of Chevrolet.  A 396 version of the Chevy 427 was first available in production Chevies in 1965 (in Impala SSs and 200 Chevelle Malibus right at the end of the 1965 model year).  Chrysler then did the same in 1964--seeing as how Chevy got away with it throughout 1963--with their 426 Hemi, which I believe did not wind up in any production Chrysler models until 1966.

What NASCAR did was ban engines not sold in production cars for 1965 and beyond, which in effect banned only the Hemi since Chevy had gotten an allowance to run 396s at 427 CID for 1965.  Ford was unaffected, since their dual-four-barreled 427 had been offered in Galaxies in 1963, 1964, and 1965.  It was expensive--adding a thousand dollars to the cost of a Galaxie, although to be fair you could only get the 427 engine in a package that mandated heavy-duty springs, heavy-duty shocks, heavy-duty brakes (which were bigger four-wheel drums--NOT discs), a heavy-duty radiator, a heavy-duty clutch, a four-speed manual, dual exhausts, severe-duty 8-ply blackwalls on 8"-wide wheels, a heavy-duty alternator and regulator, and maybe some other performance details.  This sounds like a bargain today when a set of adjustable racing shocks alone can set you back over $6,000--which is a thousand dollars more than the entire '63 427 Galaxie 500 fastback I just described!  The trick was getting insurance for the 427 Galaxie--the monthly premiums for engines over 399 cubic inches typically exceeded the monthly car payments.  The 409 Chevies; 426 wedge Plymouths, Dodges, and Chryslers; 410 Mercury Marauders; 421 Pontiacs; yada yada yada faced the same monster insurance rates. A lot of young men never got the hotrods of their dreams because of the insurance--and God help you if you had a ticket or two!

But I digress...NASCAR actually banned engines not offered in production cars at the end of 1964, seeing as how first Chevrolet and then Plymouth/Dodge raced with engines you or I could only buy in crates, and even then preference went to those with surnames like Yunick, Petty, Landy, Garlits, McEwen, Jenkins, Owens, Turner, et al.  When Ford got NASCAR approval to test a 427 SOHC in a '66 Fairlane at what was then Charlotte Motor Speedway, NASCAR couldn't ban it because Ford was willing to produce and sell a production version, but NASCAR effectively banned it by creating a rule that said all OHC engines had to carry an extra pound of weight for every cubic inch of displacement--the big SOHC had absolutely no trouble carrying the extra 427 pounds of dead weight, but the tires of that day could not.  Testing at Charlotte revealed that the extra 427 pounds meant at least one extra tire change during a 500-mile race and likely two, and this was too much of a handicap to accept.  Ford then terminated the 427 SOHC, and set about designing a new NASCAR production engine from scratch. That decision gave us the Boss 429 Mustangs of '69 & '70. 
 

[93JC]

That would be fun to watch but it would never work out. I'd give most stock brakes about 5 laps.

In my mind it would imply that there would have to be a production car available with a racing car's brakes. 

[Sigma Projects]

real Stock Cars? Left AND right turns??? Cool music? I won't believe it, this is like the moon landing... 

Seriously, can someone explain why NASCAR is even called by that name anymore? I mean what about a NASCAR vehicle is stock??? Seriously, they should stop being retards and naming the cars after real cars that share absolutely nothing in common. I mean they don't even share a remote shape with the production cars. I don't think they even use the same bolts and nuts... It's sad when a sport like this is called Stock Car racing, but has absolutely no bearing on the production cars. That's what the whole idea of some racing leagues they harden sports cars provide new R&D. I really wish they would stop this stupid charades of names and make the cars further technologically advanced or start making production cars mandatory as the base for the race cars like in just about every other racing league that uses the name of the production car. I really can't get into NASCAR because of that. The only entertaining moments are when cars crash, which is extremely sad of a motor sport.

To me NASCAR died when they stopped using production cars.

[Nethead]

real Stock Cars? Left AND right turns??? Cool music? I won't believe it, this is like the moon landing... 

Seriously, can someone explain why NASCAR is even called by that name anymore? I mean what about a NASCAR vehicle is stock??? Seriously, they should stop being retards and naming the cars after real cars that share absolutely nothing in common. I mean they don't even share a remote shape with the production cars. I don't think they even use the same bolts and nuts... It's sad when a sport like this is called Stock Car racing, but has absolutely no bearing on the production cars. That's what the whole idea of some racing leagues they harden sports cars provide new R&D. I really wish they would stop this stupid charades of names and make the cars further technologically advanced or start making production cars mandatory as the base for the race cars like in just about every other racing league that uses the name of the production car. I really can't get into NASCAR because of that. The only entertaining moments are when cars crash, which is extremely sad of a motor sport.

To me NASCAR died when they stopped using production cars.

Sigma Projects:  Yeah, SigDude, NASCAR is ridiculous--and has been for a long, long time.   I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that 1962 was the last racing season that stripped-down production cars were all that were allowed by NASCAR across the board.  My reasons for proposing 1962 are stated in my preceding posting.  There may have been improper allowances even earlier than 1963, but I was just too young to be aware of them.  To my best recollection, 1963 began NASCAR's downward spiral into utter irrelevance, and it didn't take but about a decade to get there.  An American tragedy...  

[ChrisV]

real Stock Cars? Left AND right turns??? Cool music? I won't believe it, this is like the moon landing... 

Seriously, can someone explain why NASCAR is even called by that name anymore? I mean what about a NASCAR vehicle is stock???

To me NASCAR died when they stopped using production cars.

Well, I can actually speak to that. It's the same reason in SCCA road racing a "production" class sports car is often semi-tube frame with fiberglass bodywork and gutted interiors. Nothing even close to what they were like in production form. Like this mostly fiberglass D Production Datsun 2000:



The reason is quite simple really. Stock cars and production sports cars are not open wheel specials. Sports car racing had formula cars, sports racers, and cars that looked like they started as factory cars. And in the early days, they did. But even though they stopped being actual production cars, they were still differentiated from the formula cars and sports racers:





NASCAR, and back in the day, USAC, AAA, and others, ran oval tracks at a time when most oval track racing was done with specials/sprint cars. Open wheel cars that ran at Indy and the like, sprint cars and midgets that were single seaters, and cars called modifieds, that were basically open wheel cars with roofs. And while, like production class road racers, Stock cars really were nearly stock to start with, the TERM "stock car" is there to differentiate these production looking closed wheel cars from the open wheel cars that run ovals in those sanctioning bodies:







Remember, NASCAR isn't the only racing sanctioning body that uses the term "stock car" to denote cars that have production shapes vs cars that are, as the last picture shows, highly modified bodies, or open wheel specials. And the proper term for the top NASCAR racing class (that we see at the Daytona 500) is "grand national" as that's simply the top racing class under the NASCAR umbrella.



This one is an IMCA Hobby Stock Car. Yes, it started as a production Monte Carlo, but very little of the original Monte Carlo is left. It's just the barest of skins, with a lot of replacement panels, and it's representative of the lower NASCAR classes. Compare that to the Modified posted above, that uses the same basic chassis and engine. And this next one is in a class called Pro Street Stock:



it sits on the same chassis as this Pro Modified:



Does that explain where the term came from and why it's still in effect?

[MidnightDave]

That was a blast, thanks for sharing. The buried tires, chain link fence and dirt berms for barriers, that spectacular, (not really in a good way) crash that AJ took, those were the days!

I've often thought it would be fun to do a tribute car for one of those, it probably wouldn't cost that much--look what they drove, mass produced family haulers!

Finally, (that's likely what you're saying), can you imagine if they did that today and turned racers loose in a stock Camry, or Lumina or Accord? That would be a blast to watch that, too!

[sportyaccordy]

Wow that was worth the watch for the music alone. The sweet jumps, random explosion and dori dori action were just bonuses

IT would def. be cool to see today's family haulers get slammed and roll cage'd up to battle to the death.

[Sigma Projects]

Thanks ChrisV, that does explain a lot about the name. Still wish there was something related to the production cars in NASCAR though...

[ChrisV]

Thanks ChrisV, that does explain a lot about the name. Still wish there was something related to the production cars in NASCAR though...

In NASCAR there is. Just not so much in the Grand National or Sprint Cup class. But NASCAR has lower classes that do require production bodies and chassis. Like NASCAR Pure Stock: http://www.toyotaspeedwayatirwindale.com/rules/ps.pdf

Of course there used to be 4 cyl Baby Grand National cars that were mostly foreign stockers (like the Datsun 200SX), as well as a few other series.

[hotrodalex]

If NASCAR was like that now, I'd go to every single race.