Andy Hampton won the ARCA-sanctioned 300-miler at Daytona.
Daytona Beach, Fla. (February 18, 1968) - Lucky Andy Hampton of Louisville, Ky., moved from the winner's circle in Automobile Racing Club of America ranks into faster company today as he joined dozens of other stock car drivers in qualifying runs toward the $200,000 Daytona 500 next Sunday.
Hampton collected $5,300 for victory in the ARCA 300-mile winter championships Sunday in a 1967 Dodge Charger. The winner of the Daytona 500 will get upward of $35,000.Hampton will drive the same smooth-running Dodge in the faster competition.
“I won’t outrun all of them, but I'll hang in there,” he said.
The car gave him a trouble-free two-hour spin at an average speed of 148.372 miles an hour and put him home one lap in front of second-place Jesse Baird of Louisville in a 1965 Dodge.
“I made only three stops,” Hampton said. “We took on gas all three times and changed tires on the right side once.”
Each of the past three years, the chunky 39-year-old veteran driver ran into bad luck in the organization’s annual event in Daytona Speed Weeks.
He finished second, third and fourth and was beginning to think the high banked 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway was a jinx to him.
“Last year, Les Snow blew an engine right in front of me on the second lap and I had to pit to clean the oil off the windshield,” he recalled.
That cost him a minute and possibly the race. He finished fourth in a pack with the first three cars.
“But this year I had only one bad moment,” Hampton said. “I ran through oil just after someone's engine blew and got sideways. I almost brushed the wall, but this time I was lucky. I didn't get into it.”
He was far from other troubles that brought out five caution flags for 18 laps, including one for a two-car collision that put the last six laps under yellow and saw the winner come home in a slow parade behind the pace car.
In the accident, Bobby Mausgrover of Keokuk, Iowa, and Jerry Wolland of Peoria, Ill., tangled in a rolling-tumbling wreck on the second turn.
Mausgrover, with a hip injury, and Wolland, with a neck injury and multiple face cuts, were checked over at a hospital.
Results –
1. Andy Hampton
2. Jesse Baird
3. Iggy Katona
4. Chuck McWilliams
5. John Sommerville
6. Jack Shanklin
7. Bill Clemons
8. Jim Scott
9. Bob Cooper
10.Homer Newland
11.Clyde Parker
12.Gene Crittenden
13.Earl Smith
14.Bobby Mausgrover
15.Jerry Wolland
16.Jim Clarke
17.Bill Kimmel
18.Don Gregory
19.Paul Wensink
20.Dorus Wisecarver
No comments:
Post a Comment