Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 90 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 15, 30 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.
15 Years Ago — 2009
News: Viva Las Vegas!
For the first time in more than 25 years, NASCAR did not crown its Sprint Cup champion at the iconic Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.
The NASCAR community gathered in Las Vegas last week to celebrate the 2009 season and
toast Jimmie Johnson for winning his fourth NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship. And being in Vegas instead of New York was just fine for many attendees.
“I love it here,” said two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Tony Stewart. “I never did fit the New York personality anyway.”
Stewart’s sentiments were shared by many here for the week’s parties, media events and other official functions, including the new four-time champion.
“New York is an amazing city,” Johnson said. “I have an apartment there. My wife and I spend a lot of time in the city, but December in New York is tough. You have UN (United Nations) stuff
going on, holiday shopping, and it’s a city that isn’t so excited to host us; whereas we come to
Vegas, and the city is bending over backward to accommodate us.”’
Winners: When Kyle Busch didn’t earn an invitation to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series banquet in Las Vegas, he used it as an opportunity to win a race he’s wanted to win for a long time.
After falling short as both a driver and a car owner in the past, Busch finally found victory lane at Five Flags Speedway, passing veteran short-track driver Eddie Mercer with 24 laps remaining on his way to winning Sunday’s 42nd annual Snowball Derby.
It was a moment of redemption for the NASCAR Nationwide Series champion, who failed to qualify for the Derby two years ago and had a car he owned get disqualified last year after Brian Ickier drove it to victory.
“This race has always been special to me,” Busch said. “I came down here and qualified second when I was 16 and rve wanted to win it ever since. When I didn’t make The Chase and
didn’t have any obligation to go to the banquet this weekend, I decided to come down here and make a full-fledged effort to win. To finally come here and win is awesome.”
30 Years Ago — 1994
News: Dale Coyne, meet the man they call Sweetness.
Walter Payton, the leading rusher in the history of the National Football League, joined Coyne as co-owner of the newly named PaytonCoyne Racing Team last Wednesday in a ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
“Being competitive is what drives me both on a playing field and on the business front,” Payton said. “Racing will enable me to combine my talents and experience involving me with a sport I truly love. Dale’s experience and forthrightness are qualities I admire. I feel I can add a new dimension to this emerging team.”
Coyne said Payton, a longtime fan of motorsports and a frequent competitor in road racing events including the SCCA Trans-Am Championship, attended the 1994 Indianapolis 500 as a guest of Dale Coyne Racing. That set the ball in motion.
“He’s always had a love for auto racing, he likes to be competitive. It’s a natural,” Coyne said. “We’re both from Chicago, we’re the same age, we were both born lnJuly,1954 and we both just have a love for motorsports.
“We hit it off well this summer, and he’s got a lot of respect for what we’ve done,”
Coyne continued. “I obviously have a lot of respect for what he’s done, too. I used to watch the football games in Chicago, waiting for Walter to go over 100 yards again. We both feel good about it.”
Winners: P.J. Jones, whose pit crew changed a failing rear end during the mid-race break, reeled in Mike Skinner with the laps· winding down to win Sunday’s NASCAR SuperTruck Series by Craftsman Winter Heat 200 pickup truck race at Tucson Raceway Park.
Jones, who scored his first NASCAR victory, averaged a record 76.444 mph for the 75-mile distance. The 25-year-old, second-generation competitor was the last of three leaders, beating Ron Hornaday, Jr.’s Spears Motor Sports Chevrolet by 3.9 seconds.
Jones, who drove Scoop Vessels’s Vessels Stallion Farms/Traders Ford, won $7,325 in the second of three winter events at the three-eighths-mile asphalt oval.
Jones, however, never would have finished had the race not included a lap-100 intermission
for refueling. The cooler servicing his car’s rear end was plugged up and created an overheating problem.
“It was toast,” the son of 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones said of the rear end. “Two more laps and it would have locked up and I’d have been out.”
The winner also paid tribute to his younger brother, Page, who still is recovering from injuries sustained in a late-summer sprint car accident and who was slated to drive the black No. 1 pickup.
“This Is his ride. He’d be in the truck If he could be here,” said Jones. “The last few months have been tough, especially for my dad. I hope this lifts his spirits.”
60 Years Ago— 1964
News: The racing world paid its final respects Tuesday to the memory of Bobby Marshman, who died Thursday from bums received in a crash at the Phoenix Int’l Raceway Nov. 27.
Burial was at the Limerick Garden of Memories here after Protestant funeral services were held
at the Holcombe Funeral Home in nearby Trappe, Pa.
Marshman suffered bums over 90% of his body when his Lotus Ford hit the wall during tests conducted by the Ford Motor Company.
He was rushed to a Phoenix hospital and was transferred Saturday, Nov. 28th, to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, where he died Thursday.
He leaves his widow, the former Janet Fairlie of Graterford, Pa.; a son, Robbie, I; his parents, Mr. and Mrs. George Marshman of Hatfield, Pa.; and two sisters. Mrs. Marshman and his parents were at his side when he died.
A wire service erroneously reported that Marshman jumped from the flaming car after the crash.
Later reports stated that Marshman was trapped in the car for almost a minute before rescue men could pull him from the car. They covered him with foam, but not before he was severely burned.
The popular USAC star was born to racing. His father was an eastern racing champion and Bobby accompanied him to many racing events. He was four months old when he attended his first race and drove his first race car at age 11.
Winners: Two-time Indianapolis winner Rodger Ward brought his 1964 Mercury home In first place in Sunday afternoon’s 300-lap USAC National Championship Stock Car race at Ascot Park before some 3,500 fans on hand for the J.C. Agajanian-promoted races on the half-mile hard dirt track.
ln a race that saw the lead change hands many times, Ward finished the race running only on the cord of his right-rear tire, but that was good enough for the win in a race that saw tire wear a major factor.
Ward got off to a bad start in the marathon event, spinning out in the first tum on the second lap. Not to be denied, he raced back from dead last, and was running second at 45 laps.
Second place went to former three-time national motorcycle racing champion Joe Leonard in a 1964 Dodge.