1966 Southern 500
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1966 Southern 500
The 1966 Southern 500, the 17th running of the event, was a NASCAR Grand National Series event that was held on September 5, 1966, at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. The transition to purpose-built racecars began in the early 1960s and occurred gradually over that decade. Changes made to the sport by the late 1960s brought an end to the "strictly stock" vehicles of the 1950s. Background Darlington Raceway, nicknamed by many NASCAR fans and drivers as "The Lady in Black" or "The Track Too Tough to Tame" and advertised as a "NASCAR Tradition", is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is of a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design, an oval with the ends of very different configurations, a condition which supposedly arose from the proximity of one end of the track to a minnow pond the owner refused to relocate. This situation makes it very challenging for the crews to set up their cars' handling in a way that will be effecti ...
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Darel Dieringer
Darel Dieringer (June 1, 1926 – October 28, 1989) was an American professional stock car racing driver. He ran 181 NASCAR Grand National Series races during his career, notably racing for Bud Moore Engineering and Junior Johnson & Associates. Dieringer won seven races and recorded 79 top ten finishes. Racing career Early years Dieringer began to race in 1949 in and around his native Indianapolis, and had offers to race IndyCars. NASCAR Dieringer began to race in the NASCAR Grand National Series in 1957, running nine races for three owners and finishing in the top ten twice, the first being in only his third race. He did not finish a race in 1958, and did not run a Grand National race again until 1961, where sporadic runs throughout the season culminated in one race for Petty Enterprises late in the year. The following year, Dieringer ran at Daytona with Ray Fox, but from that point ran part-time in other lower-tier equipment. For 1963, Dieringer teamed up with Bill Str ...
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1966 In NASCAR
This category contains articles on individual years in NASCAR. {{Commons cat, NASCAR seasons Seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ... Seasons in stock car racing ...
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Bud Hartje
In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of a stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately. Buds may be specialized to develop flowers or short shoots or may have the potential for general shoot development. The term bud is also used in zoology, where it refers to an outgrowth from the body which can develop into a new individual. Overview The buds of many woody plants, especially in temperate or cold climates, are protected by a covering of modified leaves called ''scales'' which tightly enclose the more delicate parts of the bud. Many bud scales are covered by a gummy substance which serves as added protection. When the bud develops, the scales may enlarge somewhat but usually just drop off, leaving a series of horizontally-elongated scars on the surface of the growing stem. By means of these scars one can determine the age of any young branch, ...
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Buddy Baker
Elzie Wylie "Buddy" Baker Jr. (January 25, 1941 – August 10, 2015) was an American professional stock car racing driver and commentator. Over the course of his 33-year racing career, he won 19 races in the NASCAR Cup Series, including the 1980 Daytona 500. Known by the nickname "Gentle Giant," Baker was noted for his prowess at NASCAR's superspeedways, Daytona and Talladega, at which he won a combined six races. After his racing career, he worked as a broadcaster and co-hosted a number of radio shows on Sirius XM. Early life Baker was born on January 25, 1941, in Florence, South Carolina, the son of two-time NASCAR champion Buck Baker. A high school athlete, Baker began racing in 1958 at age 17, and started his NASCAR career the following year. As a teenager, he idolized many of NASCAR's top drivers, including his father and Fireball Roberts, and he studied them closely during his early NASCAR career. Career Baker won his first race in 1967, winning the National 500 at Char ...
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Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand, and luxury cars under its Lincoln luxury brand. Ford also owns Brazilian SUV manufacturer Troller, an 8% stake in Aston Martin of the United Kingdom and a 32% stake in China's Jiangling Motors. It also has joint ventures in China (Changan Ford), Taiwan (Ford Lio Ho), Thailand ( AutoAlliance Thailand), and Turkey ( Ford Otosan). The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is controlled by the Ford family; they have minority ownership but the majority of the voting power. Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines; by ...
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Cale Yarborough
William Caleb "Cale" Yarborough (born March 27, 1939) is an American former NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver and owner, businessman, and farmer. He is one of only two drivers in NASCAR history to win three consecutive championships, winning in 1976, 1977, and 1978. He was one of the preeminent stock car drivers from the 1960s to the 1980s and also competed in IndyCar events. His fame was such that a special model of the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II was named after him. His 83 wins tie him with Jimmie Johnson for sixth on the all-time NASCAR Cup Series winner's list (behind Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip, who are tied for fourth with 84). His 14.82% winning percentage is the ninth best of all-time and third among those with 500 or more starts. Yarborough won the Daytona 500 four times; his first win coming in 1968 for the Wood Brothers, the second in 1977 for Junior Johnson, and back-to-back wins in 1983 and 1984 for Ranier-Lundy Racing. Yarborough is a three-time winner of the ...
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Earl Balmer
Earl Franklin Balmer (December 13, 1935 – October 25, 2019) was an American racing driver who drove stock cars and motorcycles. Balmer competed in the ARCA Racing Series and NASCAR Grand National Series, winning a Daytona 500 qualifying race in 1966. Racing career He started his career at the Jeffersonville Sportsdrome in Clarksville, Indiana. After exiting the NASCAR scene, Balmer returned to local racing, running late models at Fairgrounds Speedway. Balmer drove in the ARCA Racing Series from 1959 to 1973, winning races at tracks like Salem Speedway, Pan American Speedway and Corpus Christi Speedway. He also won ARCA's first superspeedway race, a qualifier race for the 1964 250-mile race. During that race, Balmer led 65 of the first 67 laps before falling victim to an oil leak. Balmer's main ride for his ARCA races were Plymouth cars. In 1964 and 1965, Balmer drove for Bud Moore Engineering, teaming with David Pearson in 1964 and Darel Dieringer in 1965. He picked up th ...
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Sam McQuagg
Samuel "Sam" McQuagg (November 11, 1937 – January 3, 2009) was an American former NASCAR Rookie of the Year driver. He died of cancer on January 3, 2009 at the age of 71. He and his wife Joy had recently celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary.Former NASCAR Rookie of the Year Dies
SI.com, January 4, 2009


Career

Born in , McQuagg was named ''NASCAR Rookie of the Year'' in 1965 after achieving 5 top-10 finishes in 16 races. McQuagg was a major player in an incident in one of the wildest NASCAR races ever. McQuagg was leading the ...
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Paul Goldsmith
Paul Goldsmith (born October 2, 1925) is a former USAC and NASCAR driver. He is an inductee of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, and the USAC Hall of Fame. Later in life Goldsmith became a pilot and, flying primarily a Cessna 421, transported engines and parts to and from races. Goldsmith is currently the oldest living veteran of the Indianapolis 500. Motorcycle career Goldsmith was a famous A.M.A. Grand National Championship motorcycle racer during the late 1940s through the mid-1950s. His first victory came in 1952 aboard a Harley-Davidson at the Milwaukee Mile in Harley's hometown. Paul was a full-time worker at a Chrysler plant in Detroit. His most famous victory was in the 1953 Daytona 200. Later in 1953, he won a event at the grueling Langhorne (Pennsylvania) cinder track. He was awarded the Most Popular Rider of the Year Award for his efforts. In 1954, Goldsmith had one victory at Charity Newsies at Columbus, Ohio, and four podiu ...
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Mercury (automobile)
Mercury is a defunct division (business), division of the American automobile manufacturer Ford Motor Company. Created in 1938 by Edsel Ford, Mercury served as the medium-price brand of Ford for nearly its entire existence, bridging the price gap between the Ford and Lincoln Motor Company, Lincoln model lines. Competing against Buick and Oldsmobile from General Motors for decades, the brand also competed against Chrysler, Chrysler's namesake brand (following the closure of DeSoto (automobile), DeSoto). From 1945 until its closure, Mercury formed half of the Lincoln-Mercury Division of Ford, which served as a combined sales network (distinct from Ford) for its two premium automotive brands. Lincoln-Mercury also served as the sales network for Continental (1956–1960), Edsel (1958–1960) and Merkur (1985–1989). Through the use of platform sharing and manufacturing commonality, Mercury vehicles shared components and engineering with Ford or Lincoln (or both concurrently) ...
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Plymouth (automobile)
Plymouth was a brand of automobiles produced by Chrysler, Chrysler Corporation and its successor Mercedes-Benz Group, DaimlerChrysler. The brand was launched in 1928 to compete in what was then described as the "low-priced" market segment that was dominated by Chevrolet and Ford Motor Company, Ford. It became a high-volume seller for the automaker until the late 1990s. Plymouth cars were marketed primarily in the United States. The brand was withdrawn from the marketplace in 2001. The Plymouth models that were produced up to then were either discontinued or rebranded as Chrysler or Dodge. History Origins The Plymouth automobile was introduced at Madison Square Garden (1925), Madison Square Garden on July 7, 1928. It was Chrysler Corporation's first entry in the low-priced field previously dominated by Chevrolet and Ford. Plymouths were initially priced higher than the competition, but offered standard features such as internal expanding hydraulic brakes that Ford and Chevrol ...
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Dodge
Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above Plymouth. Founded as the Dodge Brothers Company machine shop by brothers Horace Elgin Dodge and John Francis Dodge in the early 1900s, Dodge was originally a supplier of parts and assemblies to Detroit-based automakers like Ford. They began building complete automobiles under the "Dodge Brothers" brand in 1914, predating the founding of Chrysler Corporation. The factory located in Hamtramck, Michigan was the Dodge main factory from 1910 until it closed in January 1980. John Dodge died from the Spanish flu in January 1920, having lungs weakened by tuberculosis 20 years earlier. Horace died in December of the same year, perhaps weakened by the Spanish flu, though the cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver. Their company was sold by their ...
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