St. Paul,
Minn. (September 1, 1960) – Ernie Derr, the IMCA point leader, had an extra
$1,000 in his pocket because he knew he was right.
Officials
counted him as placing second to Ramo Stott in the 200-lap, 100-mile stock car
feature on Thursday afternoon.
But Derr
protested the scoring and after an hour of discussion among officials, won his
decision and was awarded first place and the $1,000 paycheck.
“This means
$1,000 to me and I’m not going to be fooled,” Derr remarked.
What
happened was that Derr had lapped the field before the 21,645 fans and
officials simply missed it.
The mix-up
came on the 104th lap when Derr, as the leader, pulled his 1960
Pontiac into the pits. When he re-entered the track again, he slid in behind
Stott.
“Sure, he
(Stott) pulled out ahead of me,” explained Derr. “But I had a lap lead on him.
It’s easy for officials to get confused. They have a lot of cars to watch.”
Derr took
the lead from Bob Kosiskie of Omaha, Neb., on lap 71. Kosiskie, Monday’s
100-lap feature winner, had pulled into the pits with a broken ball joint in
the left front wheel of his 1959 Thunderbird.
Kosiskie had
taken the lead from St. Paul’s Buzz McCann on lap 53.
Derr’s
winning time was 1 hour, 40 minutes, and 55 seconds. Second and third place
finishers were also from Keokuk, Iowa. They were, respectively, Ramo Stott and
Dick Hutcherson.
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