1969 Ford Torino Talladega from North America - Comments

Seems like the mopar boys should be flying the Charger 500 banner more than the winged cars, since they won 22 races compared to the 14 combined wing car victories for 69 and 70.

Hell, the Mercury won as many races as the unsuperbird, which looked like it was on steroids (shrivelled balls and all) and will be remembered the same in the history books with an asterisk next to it, saying it won in a season that did not have full Factory Support for every team, unlike 1969!!!

I probably should have also pointed out that of the 22 victories recorded by the Charger 500, all but one were on the short tracks (tracks of less than a mile in length). Likewise, all but three of the Charger 500 victories took place in 1969. After the debut of the winged cars, most of the Chrysler teams went to the winged car body styles, else the Charger 500 might have won a few more races in 1970, although based on the results that occurred during the 1969 season, those successes would likely have also occurred on the short tracks.

It is also important to note that the aero cars were not the only cars that raced in 1969 and 1970. In fact, there were actually a few races that were won by non-aero cars, although very few. Specifically, the 1968 Plymouth Roadrunner won 2 races during those two seasons (both on short tracks in 1969), the 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner won 2 races (both on short tracks in 1970), the 1970 Ford Torino won 2 races (1 short track victory and 1 super-speedway victory - both in 1970), the 1969 Dodge Charger won 1 race in 1969 on a short track, and the 1969 Ford Torino won 1 race in 1969 on a super-speedway.

However, these results definitely paled beside the number of victories recorded by the aero cars. Out of 102 races on all tracks during the 1969 and 1970 NASCAR seasons, all but 8 were won by one of the 5 aero cars. Likewise, on the super-speedways (tracks of a mile or more in length), the 5 aero cars won 37 out of 39 races during the 1969 and 1970 seasons, with the Ford camp taking 22 and the Chrysler camp taking 15 (the other 2 super-speedway races were won by a couple of Ford's non-aero cars, the 1969 Torino and the 1970 Torino, which each managed to win a single super-speedway race during the aerowars years of 1969 and 1970).

Now comes the most interesting question of all, when did the aero wars actually begin? Most conventional wisdom says they began in 1969 with the debut of the Dodge Charger 500 and the Ford Talladega; however, a very strong case could also be made for 1968 being the beginning of the aero wars with the debut of the 1968 Ford Fairlane/Torino Sportsroof (fastback to most people). This bodystyle managed to dominate the 1968 season so thoroughly that Richard Petty decided that if he "couldn't beat 'em, he would join 'em", resulting in his defection to the Ford camp in 1969 in order to drive the new (and even more aerodynamic Ford Talladega). In 1968 Ford won the manufacturer's championship and David Pearson won the driver's championship.

The only reasons that the 1968 Sportsroof Fords were not also banned by Bill France was their huge market success (how could he possibly claim that they were homologation specials, when Ford built and sold well over 100,000 units?), and the fact that virtually all of the big name teams had switched over to the newer and slicker Talladega cars, once they became available.

Bill France was correctly concerned that his "stock car racing series" was being taken over by the manufacturers (Ford and Chrysler) that were exploiting his rules on the definition of a "stock car," in order to race purpose built race cars rather than what he considered to be "stock cars." They did this by building the most competitive race cars they could, but doing it in sufficient volumes to meet the minimum production rules, and then making these showroom race cars available for sale to the public. Ford and Chrysler then claimed that they were actually "stock cars" since they had met the letter, if not the spirit, of the rules that Bill France had written. Bill responded by "re-writing the rules" to virtually eliminate these homologation specials by limiting these specific 5 aero cars to no more than 305 cubic inch engines in 1971 - thus, ending the aero wars. For many of us the 1969 and 1970 NASCAR seasons represented NASCAR's finest hours, not to mention the finest race cars that could be purchased from show room floors at Ford and Chrysler dealers all across the country.

Ironically, NASCAR has gone completely in the opposite direction today. The Car of Tomorrow (COT) is nothing more than a skin over a roll cage on a standard racing chassis with a standard racing drive train and suspension that all teams must use and are free to decorate with the manufacturer's name of their choice. However, any resemblance to an actual car that can be purchased from any manufacturer is purely coincidental and in no manner reflects the actual racing of a "stock car." NASCAR should really change its name to NANSyCR (pronounced: "Nancy Car") - National Association of Non-Stock Car Racing (it's not even restricted to "American" brand names anymore.) Big Bill France is surely rolling over in his grave...