1966 – Petty Zips to ‘400’ Crown

 

Country and western singing star Marty Robbins congratulates Richard Petty after his victory at Nashville. Robbins was making his NASCAR Grand National debut.

Nashville, Tenn. (July 30, 1966) – Richard Petty, averaging 71.77 miles per hour in his 1966 Plymouth, made the Nashville ‘400’ a one-man show as he breezed to a five-lap victory over Buck Baker before a record crowd of 15,161 fans at Fairgrounds Speedway on Saturday.

Bobby Allison, plagued by an oil leak for the entire 400 circuits, held on gamely and finished third.

The venerable Baker, who admits that he’s been racing as long as NASCAR president Bill France, really survived a scare at the finish. The engine on his 1966 Oldsmobile blew with one lap to go and Baker was forced to coast the rest of the way.

For Petty, it was his fourth triumph here and his speed was the fourth fastest for a NASCAR event there. Petty topped it three times himself with a 76.4 mph and 73.2 mph in 1964 events and 72.38 mph last year. Petty earned the pole position yesterday afternoon with a record-breaking speed of 82.49 miles per hour.

The race was relatively clean with only 41 laps being run under the yellow flag and no major wrecks. The worst wreck occurred on the first lap when Darel Dieringer’s 1966 Ford spun on the backstretch.

Allison’s car started smoking on the very first lap, but he pushed Petty pretty hard for the first 50 turns on the half-mile paved oval.

Petty later said, “Bobby ran real good at the beginning but I guess he just had to give up because of the smoke. He was smoking so bad that I just dropped back instead of lapping him.”

Allison made four pit stops, for both gas and oil. Allison mentioned he ran hard at the beginning, “because I wanted to figure out just what the trouble was.”

Petty made four pit stops, three of them while the yellow flag was out. The fourth was for a vibration, in which Petty’s crew changed both right-side tires, as he did on a previous pit stop.

“I didn’t get tired. I didn’t have to run hard the last 200 laps and it just got comfortable. It was nice and cool, too,” he remarked while signing autographs.

Petty picked up $2,750 for the win while Baker collected $1,400 and Allison took home $850.

Twenty-eight cars started but only 11 were still running at the end.

One of the pre-race favorites and former Nashville winners, Jim Paschal, did not start because the engine on his 1965 Plymouth blew during an afternoon practice run.


Results –

1. Richard Petty
2. Buck Baker
3. Bobby Allison
4. Earl Brooks
5. John Sears
6. Neil Castles
7. Clyde Lynn
8. Coo Coo Marlin
9. Wendell Scott
10.James Hylton
11.Larry Hess
12.Gene Elliott
13.G.C. Spencer
14.Joel Davis
15.Buddy Arrington
16.Friday Hassler
17.Elmo Langley
18.Wayne Smith
19.Don Biederman
20.J.T. Putney
21.Roy Tyner
22.Paul Lewis
23.J.D. McDuffie
24.Doug Cooper
25.Marty Robbins