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: Veteran racing promoter Fred Brownfield, who last winter formed the National Sprint Tour, a competitor to the long-standing World of Outlaws, was killed Friday night at Grays Harbor Raceway.
Brownfield, 53, was standing on the track helping to line up cars on the opening night of the Northwest Modified Nationals when he was struck. He died that evening at Mark Reed Hospital.
More than 800 fans were in the stands, including Brownfield’s wife, Debbie, his son-in-law and two grandchildren. Brownfield had been the promoter of Grays Harbor for the past decade.
“There was a couple of cars out of line from where they should have been, and one of them was on the outside of the track and on the high side,” Stormy Glick, a friend of Brownfield, told the Aberdeen Daily World.
“He needed to be on the inside of the track, and he dove down to go around some cars on the inside and never saw Fred on the track at all.
“The driver did nothing wrong. He was just trying to get into position. He just picked the wrong place, and it was absolutely horrible – instantaneous. The medics were there within a minute, and they tried as hard as they could, but there was absolutely nothing they could do.”
According to Deputy County Coroner George Patrick, Brownfield — a father of five children — died of blunt-force trauma to the head.
Winners: The American Champ car driver, perilously close to extinction just a week ago, is alive and well.
Reveling in his new surroundings at Forsythe Championship Racing, A.J. Allmendinger emphatically closed a remarkable 10 days by dominating the Grand Prix of Portland for his first Champ car World Series victory.
He beat former RuSPORT Racing teammate Justin Wilson by 5.24 seconds, with championship leader Sebastien Bourdais third.
“This is absolutely amazing,” said Allmendinger, who averaged a record 113.989 miles per hour in a race that ran caution free. “I still don’t think I really understand it and believe that it happened.”
The roller-coaster ride started for the 24-year-old June 9, when he was released from his ride at RuSPORT.
40 Years Ago — 1986
News: CART Chairman John Frasco and officials of the Portland Rose Festival Ass’n announced a new five-year agreement for Indy Car racing to remain in Portland, it was announced Saturday before the Budwelser/G.I. Joe’s 200.
The agreement extends through 1991 and provides for a continuation of the Portland race during or near the annual June festival.
Financial details were not disclosed.
The agreement put to rest published reports In Portland that CART might be leaning toward Dallas instead of maintaining its Portland date.
“I don’t think It’s any secret that lasy year Dallas wanted this event, and we made it clear to the Rose Festival that if we could reach an agreement, we wanted to stay here.” Frasco said. “We’re looking at September for Dallas.”
A September Dallas date, however, would cause further restructuring of the schedule because of events at Mid-Ohio, Montreal and Mlchlgan, plus what happens with the shift of Elkhart Lake’s Road America to September.
When asked about schedule stability, Frasco responded, “That’s a goal I’d like to achieve, although we have to maintain some flexibility.”
Winners: Million Dollar Bill Elliott won “only” $56,900 in the Miller American 400 at Michigan Int’l Speedway Sunday.
But the first NASCAR Winston Cup regular season victory of the year for the rapid redhead had a world of satisfaction in it.
Elliott inched past leader Harry Gant coming off the fourth turn on lap 196 of the 200-lapper on the newly repaved surface of Michigan Int’l Speedway for the triumph. It was his third in the last four Winston Cup events on one of his favorite tracks.
Driving the Coores/Melling Ford Thunderbird, he led only 28 laps of the event, averaging 138.555 mph. The pace was slowed by eight caution flags for 42 laps, all for minor incidents.
Eilliott scored before what track officials called the largest crowd in MIS history, estimated at 75,000.
Traffic to the track was tied up so badly that na hour before the race it was bumper-to-bumper for more than 10 miles westward on U.S. 12.
Traffic was intense on the high banks of the speedway, too, as drafts of up to 15 cars were the rule most of the afternoon.
The only driver who showed the capability to pull away from the pack was Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine, who built a lead of 10 seconds at one point, but found himself snarled up in traffic and finished third, behind Elliott and Gant.
60 Years Ago— 1966
News: Running between thunder showers, and under far from ideal track conditions, Curtis Turner drove a I966 Chevelle set up by Smokey Yunick to a new unofficial world record for a stock car at Daytona International Speedway.
After several warmup laps, Turner turned the 2.5-mile speedway tri-oval in 0:50.84 seconds for a speed of 177.02 mph
Turner said that the Chevelle, one of two which Yunick has entered in the Firecracker 400 on July 4, never was driven all out.
“I never had the throttle all the way down,” Turner said after his record run. “This is a magnificent piece of machinery, and I am positive that it will do 180 mph, maybe better.”
Asked how fast he thought he was traveling down the backstretch, Turner said he was positive that he was running 182-183 mph.
“This is the fastest I have ever driven a car,” the veteran NASCAR pro said, “and I never drove a car that handled so beautifully.”
Yunick said that the Chevelle never turned more than 6,500 rpms in the trial runs, and that it didn’t really get to working until 70,000 rpms.
Yunick said that every single part in the car that Turner drove to a record came out of a Chevrolet sales catalogue.
“We’ve been working on this car for three years,” he said. “It is not something that blossomed overnight full grown.”
Winners: More than 8,000 fans contributed to a record purse of over $11,000 for the running of the twin 30-lap features for the USAC sprint cars at the fast half-mile Terre Haute, Ind., dirt track. Roger McCluskey came out on top in both races.
“The long dry spell is over,” said Roger McCluskey after winning the first 30 lapper here Sunday afternoon. The dry spell McCluskey referred to was winning a sprint race. His last victory was on the West coast in 1964. After he had won seven features and the Sprint Championship in 1963 McCluskey flipped at Reading in the first race of 1964 and sat out most of the year with a broken arm.
Leading from wire to wire, McCluskey left little doubt as to who was going to win. Second spot was held by Arnie Knepper for 22 laps before fourth starter Bobby Unser passed Knepper to take second. Knepper held on for third as Don Branson took fourth. Larry Dickson and Dick Atkins, running here for the first time, took fifth and sixth.
McCluskey started out front in the nightcap but traded the lead with Bobby Unser and Dick Atkins before regaining the point on lap 25 and leading the rest of the distance. Unser passed Atkins on the final to finish second, with Atkins third. Weld took fourth with Knepper fifth.
Don Branson could not start the second feature as a timing gear broke on the last lap of the first feature.
Receiving $500 extra for winning both features brough McCluskey’s pay to $2,788, the largest ever paid to a driver here.
