Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 92 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 20, 40 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.
20 Years Ago — 2006
News: Sprint car driver Steve King died Thursday from injuries sustained in a violent crash during the opening night of the Knoxville Nationals.
The Jetmore, Kan., native claimed the National Championship Racing Ass’n 360 championship in 2002 and 2003, and he won 17 NCRA features during a racing career that began when he was a teenager.
King, 33, hit the turn-three fence after a part broke on his car on lap 24 of the 25-lap feature. Safety crews extracted King from his family-owned No. 88. He was transported to a local hospital and was later flown to Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, where he was declared brain dead. He died the following morning.
A moment of silence was observed prior to Thursday night’s program.
“Our hearts, our souls, our prayers are certainly with the family,” said Knoxville Raceway Director of Racing Ralph Capitani. “He’s a fine young man — a great loss to sprint car racing.”
“It’s heartbreaking,” said former driver Shane Carson, who now works for the World of Outlaws. “I’ve known Steve and his family a long time. It’s just one of those things.”
It was the second death of the year at the historic Knoxville Raceway; as vintage racer Roger Schuur was killed in June. It was also the 15th racing-related death at the Marion County Fairgrounds oval.
A fourth-generation farmer, King had a degree in animal sciences from Kansas State University.
Winners: Donny Schatz finally got to walk down the aisle at the Knoxville Nationals.
After being a bridesmaid four times in the sprint-car racing’s crown jewel, Schatz got to stand on top of the podium Saturday night at Knoxville Raceway, earning his Parker Stores racing team the largest winner’s purse in dirt-track racing — $140,000.
“I’m as excited as I have ever been in my life,” Schatz said. “This is one of the most defining moments of my life. You put the helmet on and you block everything out, and I feel like I still have to take my helmet off to let the emotion out.
“I’m excited, but speechless. It will probably hit me in an hour.”
The North Dakota native dominated the week, earning the most points to start on the pole for the 30-lap race.
After two aborted starts, outside- front-row starter Joey Saldana blasted into the lead, with Schatz second.
Schatz ran the low line in his J&J with Saldana up high in Kasey Kahne’s JEI. The pair ran virtually side by side for several laps.
But Schatz made his move on lap 13 and pulled ahead to stay.
After a red flag on lap 21, Schatz put an exclamation point on the victory, pulling away to win by more than a straightaway.
Saldana lost second to Jason Johnson late in the race but charged under him racing off turn four on the final lap. Saldana won a drag race to the $70,000 second-place check.
“I tried as hard as I could. I just got beat,” Saldana said. “Once a year we come here, and we just didn’t do good enough. Second isn’t too bad. Hopefully, we don’t have to run second four times before we win one of these things. Schatz deserved this. He’s done a good job all year.”
Johnson, the winningest driver on the American Sprint Car Series 360-sprint-car tour this season, used a rented Don Ott engine to come home third.
40 Years Ago — 1986
News: Former Indianapolis 500 car owner Sherman A. Armstrong has filed for financial protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in federal court.
Armstrong, a Winchester industrialist, listed debts to· unsecured creditors totaling more than $2 million.
Armstrong owned the car that won the USAC national sprint car championship in 1978 and 1979.
Armstrong also owned and sponsored several cars in the Indianapolis 500. In 1980, Gary Bettenhausen drove an Armstrong Mould-sponsored car to third place and teammate Tom Bigelow was eighth. In 1979, Howdy Holmes finished seventh and was rookie-of-the-year and Bigelow finished 14th.
Armstrong also sponsored Bigelow at the 500 in 1978.
In subsequent years, Armstrong was the U.S. distributor of March chassis.
Among debts listed in the filing were: $930,000 to Summit Bank in Fort Wayne, $600,000 to Jay Conrad of Berne and $496,000 to his former wife, Shirley Armstrong Gill of Muncie, and $49,000 to American Fletcher National Bank.
Winners: Mexican road race winner, participant in the first Southern 500, and stock car racing’s oldest winning driver, Hershel McGriff is used to finding his place in NASCAR’s record book.
The 58-year-old driver, who isn’t about to slow down for competitors who weren’t even born when he won his first race, bagged NASCAR’s first through-the-streets event as he overcame failing brakes and Derrike Cope’s seemingly dominant Western Peterbilt Ford Thunderbird.
McGriff won the NASCAR Winston West Series’ Schuck’s Tacoma Grand Prix 200 by seven seconds, taking the lead when polesitter Cope was forced to the pits for gasoline with 10 laps remaining in the $70,000 race.
Cope, who’d led more than half the 83 laps, held a five-second lead when the last of five caution flags appeared on the 74th circuit. McGriff kept his Wershow-Ash-Lewis Auctioneers/Thompson Building Materials Pontiac Grand Prix on the track and easily beat Cope to the checkered flag on used tires and brakes which came back to life after the brief slowdown.
“I drove my butt off the last eight laps,” said McGriff, who has run four miles a day for more than 30 years. “He might have caught me, but I wasn’t about to let him pass.”
60 Years Ago— 1966
News: Popular Junior Johnson, who announced his retirement from NASCAR stock car racing last November following the American 500 Grand National at Rockingham, startled the racing fraternity this week when he advised the NATIONAL SPEED SPORT NEWS that he will re- turn to competition Sunday afternoon at the Asheville-Weaverville Speedway.
The soft-spoken chicken farmer who has kept his hand in the sport by doing tire tests, and as a car owner, will strap on a crash helmet and buckle himself in behind the wheel of a 1966 Ford Galaxy powered by a dual carburetor wedge engine for the 250-iler on the half-mile paved track.
Johnson, along with chief mechanic Herb Nab, have been kept busy this season maintaining the same Ford for driver Bobby Isaac.
Chassis problems causing excessive right-front tire wear have hampered the Holly Farms team all year and Johnson, who is known for his chassis work wants to see for himself just what the problem seems to be.
This will probably be the only race that Johnson will run. Isaac has quit Holly Farms and Curtis Turner will finish the season in the car.
Winners: World record holder Jay Woodside survived a rain postponement, engine difficulties and the challenges of 22 of the top drivers in the nation to become the 1966 National Supermodified racing champion Sunday afternoon at the Marion County Fairgrounds.
Woodside, who Thursday night broke his one-lap record for half-mile semi-banked drit tracks with a lap of 21.64 seconds to earn the pole, worked all night Saturday with owner Ted Hall installing a new engine after rain interrupted the scheduled Saturday night program at the close of the second heat.
More than 6,000 fans watched as Woodside, two-time national champion Kenny Weld, Lloyd Beckman and Ray Lee Goodwin battled for the lead.
Weld enjoyed the first position for seven laps, Beckman for four laps and Goodwin for nine. But it was the 27-year-old Woodside who took the checkered flag and the $2,500 top prize.
Beckman collected $1,500 for finishing second, while Weld took third-place money ($1,000).
