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  *Comments on the 1966 Atlanta 500:*
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  1.   SK posted:
  04.09.2007 - 2:59 am
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Jim Hurtubise's only Grand National victory.


  2.   Brock posted:
  10.30.2007 - 6:19 am
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Jim Hurtubise's win in this race was wildly popular, the driver having
fought back from serious burns sustained in an earlier racing crash to
claim the victory.

Hurtubise's win was also the last time there would be a first-time
winner at Atlanta until Jerry Nadeau's first and only career victory in
November 2000.


  3.   RaceFanX posted:
  12.07.2007 - 8:37 pm
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Hurtubise was very badly burned in that earlier Indy car crash.
Apparently during the plastic surgery after the wreck he had his hands
adjusted so he could better grip a steering wheel. That's determination!


  4.   Johnny C from Chattanooga Tn posted:
  09.21.2010 - 2:30 pm
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My first NASCAR race ever attended. King Richard pretty well dominated
all day keeping about a straightaway lead most of the time until he blew
up. Sat on the 3rd row from the front and tickets were $6.00 each. What
a thrill!


  5.   rob posted:
  09.07.2011 - 7:34 pm
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recently found some old newspaper accounts of this race including
results of the saturday consolation race. top five were j.t.putney,
lionel johnson, roy tyner, wayne woodward and bunkie blackburn.


  6.   Talon64 posted:
  08.31.2012 - 6:43 pm
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1st and only win for the #56 in the Sprint Cup Series, to date.


  7.   Nascar Lead Lap Points posted:
  07.24.2013 - 1:44 pm
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzv4uFd_Kv0 Race Footage


  8.   Dan posted:
  03.05.2017 - 2:13 pm
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Hurtubise won this race with an illegal car. He carried a wrench with
him inside the car that he used to crank a bolt that lowered the car
during the race. On the cool down lap, he threw the wrench out the
window on the backstretch so that no one would see it in the car and get
suspicious.


  9.   Thomas Nester posted:
  11.22.2018 - 9:42 am
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Goldsmith and Yarbrough are both shown as qualifying 4th, no one is 12th

Lewis and Baker are both shown as qualifying 36th, no one is 26th


  10.   RaceFanX posted:
  12.29.2020 - 10:42 am
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@8
Indeed. Herk apparently made a suspiciously slow victory lap as he
cranked the white and orange #56 back into legal spec before disposing
of that wrench after the race.

As Hurtubise pulled away for the win late the on track battle of
interest was for second with a FoMoCo duel of Fred Lorenzen and his
Holman-Moody entry battling Curtis Turner in his Wood Brothers car. It
ended prematurely when Turner blew his engine leaving Lorenzen to lead
home his teammate Dick Hutcherson to the flag one lap behind Herk.


  11.   possum posted:
  12.29.2020 - 7:51 pm
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@10 - that sounds an awful lot like an urban legend. What would he crank
on to lower the car? A wedge bolt? That would be a good way to ruin the
car's handling. To effectively lower the car you'd need to lower all 4
corners, which would take some pretty complicated linkage (which,
y'know, the NASCAR inspectors might wonder about). Not to mention that a
car is heavy (1000lbs heavier in 1966 than now) and it takes
considerable force to turn a jack bolt - look at a pit crewman adding
wedge, he's got a foot-long handle on the wrench and he's got leverage
to throw his weight into it - not likely to be able to do that sitting
in the drivers seat. Beyond that, in those pre-aero days there'd be
little advantage to lowering the car - not like today's aero disasters
scraping the track for downforce - it'd help a little to lower the
center of gravity (if you could lower all 4 corners) but not much. (and,
actually, Herk probably couldn't even grasp a wrench, which would make
it moot).


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