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: Indianapolis Motor Speedway is selling its portion of Chicagoland Speedway and Route 66 Raceway to the International Speedway Corporation.
ISC has entered into a purchase agreement with Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation to indirectly acquire an additional 37.5-percent interest in Raceway Associates, LLC, owner and operator of Chicagoland Speedway and Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ill.
The purchase price for the transaction is approximately $69 million.
After the transaction closes early next year; ISC will own 100 percent of Motorsports Alliance, LLC, which owns 75 percent of Raceway Associates. Raceway Associates was formed in 1999 as a joint venture between Motorsports Alliance and the former owners of Route 66.
ISC also will exercise its right to purchase the minority partners’ remaining 25-percent interest in Raceway Associates.
“Chicagoland is a uniquely attractive asset well positioned in the nation’s third-largest media market,” said ISC President Lesa France Kennedy. ”The region boasts a strong motorsports fan base. Our active representation on Raceway Associates’ management committee and extensive knowledge of the business will help ensure a seamless integration into ISC.”
Matt Alexander; vice-president and general manger of Chicagoland, called ISC a leader in the motorsports industry.
”We feel that this transaction provides us with a great opportunity to utilize all of the valuable resources ISC has to offer in an effort to exceed our fans’ expectations on a regular basis,” Alexander said.
Winners: Dave Darland finished another big-money race just where he likes to – in the winner’s circle.
For the second-straight season, Darland owned the $30,000 winner’s check for the Budweiser Oval Nationals at Perris Auto Speedway, taking Saturday night’s 40-lap USAC National Sprint Car Series feature by nearly a straightaway over Levi Jones.
After nearly 30 laps of battling Thursday preliminary winner Mike Spencer; Darland pulled away following a late red flag.
Starting from the pole in the No. 11 Jet Star/ Jeff’s JamIt In Storage machine, Darland used
the high side all night, with Spencer in tow – and sometimes alongside and out front while Darland took the lead on the first lap, Spencer worked his way forward from fifth, taking second from Bud Kaeding on lap 12.
Using that momentum, Spencer cut deep into Darland’s lead, taking the lead on lap 14. Darland regained the position for the next four laps, but Spencer, who spent most of the first half of the race on the bottom of the track, used a pick via a slower car and dove to the inside on lap 19 to retake the top spot.
Darland used traffic to his advantage after Spencer had problems getting around several cars. Darland went to the top side on lap 26 and shot past Spencer.
When Rip Williams crashed on lap 32, the red flag waved, allowing Darland’s crew to adjust his machine.
From there, Darland led the rest of the way, while Jones stole second from Spencer on lap 38.
40 Years Ago — 1986
News: Industry observers continue to sit on the fence this week about the effect on racing which might occur in light of the current takeover bid by British financier Sir James Goldsmith for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.
Goldsmith made his bid official after the markets closed Friday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating he has acquired 11.5 percent of Goodyear’s common stock.
From what this newspaper has learned, Goodyear likely will have to commit funds from its 1987 budget to the repurchase of its own stock if it is to successfully ward off the unfriendly buyout by the international corporate raider who is said to have upwards of $3.2 billion available to him for his effort. According to financial papers, Goldsmith and Merrill Lynch should make their unwanted offer for the company before year’s end, forcing Goodyear management to seek — in every corner — the capital needed to maintain control of the corporation.
In practical terms, insiders said that advertising and racing dollars may be the very first to go into the fray. Beyond that, however, they saw a less specific turn in future events. Most noted that Goodyear’s motorsports division is financially self sufficient with the exception of the tremendously expensive Indy Car scene.
Still, since Goodyear holds 100 percent of the Indy Car market, as it does in NASCAR, it would be possible to use last year’s technology if absolutely necessary for the ’87 campaign.
Winners: It’s in the book.
Dale Earnhardt is the 1986 champion of major league stock car racing and, for all practical purposes, the season is history.
One race remains on the schedule, at Riverside, Calif., on Nov. 16, but the candles are out, the lights are off and the party is over. The fat lady is singing her farewell.
Earnhardt put the wraps on the championship here at Atlanta Raceway, Sunday, and he did it in the only fashion he knows. From green flag to checkered flag, he charged all the way to win the Atlanta Journal 500. At the end, he was well over a lap ahead of Richard
Petty, who enjoyed his best finish in two years.
Darrell Waltrip, Earnhardt’s closest challenger In the point race, made clinching the title easy. He went out with engine failure after only 81 laps. He finished 39th.
Earnhardt dominated the race, leading four times for 162 of the 328 laps. He averaged 152. 523 mph in his Richard Childress Racing Goodwrench Chevrolet.
60 Years Ago— 1966
News: The Daytona 500, to be run for the ninth time Feb. 26 at Daytona Int’l Speedway, and its qualifying races, will carry a purse of $187,010, it was announced by speedway president Bill France.
This sum marks a big leap in prize money over the 1966 race, when the total cash offered the world’s top late model stock car drivers was $141,440.
Speed and money both have taken large upward moves since the first running of the Daytona 500 in 1959.
The inaugural 200-lapper over the speedway’s 2.5-mile asphalt tri-oval, with its 31-degree banked turns, was worth $68,560 and Lee Petty’s winning share was $12,900.
The winner in February will get a check for $34,800 and that does not include lap money.
Petty won the 1959 race at an average speed of 135.521 mph, and the qualifying mark of 143.198 was set by Cotton Owens in a Pontiac.
In this year’s 500, Lee’s son, Richard won the classic late model stock car event at a speed of 160.627 mph after leading the qualifiers with a speed of 175.165 mph.
Winners: A cool and collected James Hylton, not exactly a throwback to the heyday of the Mississippi river boat gambler, took a big chance here Sunday on a cracked windshield.
And before some 8,000 liberally counted-and sometimes yawning fans, he won the inaugural running of the Cracker 250 late model modified and sportsman championship race.
“We didn’t have time to put in a new windshield,” the 31-year-old driver said moments after receiving the traditional winner’s plaudits in victory lane. “It got cracked a week ago in Rockingham, N. C., and it look us so long to get the car (a 1963 Dodge Sportsman) ready for here-well, we just had to gamble that it would hold up.”
Hylton, a one-time driving caddy for NASCAR greats Rex White and Ned Jarrett, averaged 113.789 in recording the first triumph of his young career. The popular Inman, S.C., gentleman missed courting victory during the ’66 grand national season, but his performance was good enough to claim “Rookie of the Year” honors and runner-up honors to the champion.
Overall, the afternoon speeds were something politely known as slow. Five caution flags, covering 34 laps, gave the race that slower than slow motion look.
Yet, although the official average during that interval once dipped to 67.584, at least one driver would neither confirm nor deny he was passed by a wagon load of Confederate soldiers on their way to Vicksburg.
Donnie Allison, youngest of the speed-loving brothers from Hueytown, Ala., finished second in the 50-car field. His trip, in a 1960 Ford modified, made a $2,300 wrinkle in his banking account. Hylton took home $4,050.
