Editor’s Note: Each month in recognition of SPEED SPORT’s 90th anniversary, the SPEED SPORT Insider will use the National Speed Sport News archives to look back at what happened in the racing world 50 years ago.
Top Story
$200,000 Invitational At Pocono
The U.S. Auto Club has announced it has agreed to sanction a $200,000 “World Series of Auto Racing” at Pennsylvania’s Pocono Int’l Raceway.
A dozen of the club’s best drivers will be invited to participate.
The two-part event will be produced by Richard C. Conole’s newly-formed World Series of Auto Racing Corp.
The series will be divided into two segments, the first for midgets and sprint cars and the final for stock cars and Indianapolis type championship cars.
The opening round of events is scheduled on Pocono’s flat three-quarter-mile oval Oct. 19-20 this year. It will be for midgets and sprint cars. The stocks and Indy cars will run their races April 12-13, 1975 on Pocono’s banked triangular 2.5-mile track.
Drivers to be chosen tor the events will include the winner and runner up in each of USAC’s three championship car 500s this year: the 1973 national champion and runner-up with the remaining drivers to be chosen based on current achievement.
Other News
Allison Parks Chevy: Five days after Bobby Allison announced he was parking his Chevrolet because it was not competitive on the NASCAR circuit, Roger Penske signed him to drive his AMC Matador in the July 4 Firecracker 400 at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Full Distance Races: The remaining NASCAR Cup Series races on the 1974 schedule will be conducted at regular race distances said NASCAR President Bill France Jr. With the season at the halfway mark, France rescinded the mandate that races be cut by 10 percent as requested by the Federal Energy Office.
Costly Cars A Problem: In a yearlong study conducted by the editors of Racing Promotion Monthly, it’s been revealed that the costs of fielding a race car have become a problem on the short-track scene. The impacts have been evidenced by dwindling fields of cars. Car building costs have outrun prize money, fostering increasing conflict between promoters and racers, resulting in some tracks closing.
The Winners
Petty Stops Pearson: Richard Petty, with a little help from the yellow flag, roared to
his 159th NASCAR Grand National victory in capturing the Motor State 400 at Michigan Int’l Speedway. The 180-lap race saw 51 lead changes among nine drivers.
Nelson Ruless Action Track: Fifty-one-year-old Norm Nelson, the “Durable Dane,” hoping to become the first four-time USAC stock car champion before a younger Butch Hartman does, increased his point lead to 100 as he led all 100 laps en route to victory at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Action Track.
Cale Tops Bobby: Cale Yarborough scored his sixth NASCAR Winston Cup triumph of the year at Riverside Int’l Raceway after a day-long duel with Bobby Allison.
Indy Winner Tops Milwaukee: Johnny Rutherford, fresh from victory in last month’s Indy 500, kept his momentum going and won the 25th annual Rex Mays Classic USAC national championship race at Wisconsin State Fair Speedway.
The Advertising Department
-Valvoline Oil Company used a full-page ad in the June 12, 1974 edition of National Speed Sport News to celebrate Johnny Rutherford’s Indy car victory at The Milwaukee Mile and Cale Yarborough’s NASCAR score at California’s Riverside Int’l Raceway.
THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE June 12 EDITION OF SPEED SPORT INSIDER
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