|| *Comments on the 1973 World 600:* View the most recent comment <#28> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. Anonymous posted: 12.09.2006 - 3:05 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cotton Owens's last start as a car owner with Peter Gregg in his only start finishing 37th. 2. Cecil Davis posted: 03.29.2007 - 5:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Gregg killed himself in 1980 with a rifle. He was 40 years old. 3. WillG46 posted: 10.30.2007 - 3:03 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was the race that prevented David Pearson from tying Richard Petty's record of 10 consecutive wins. 4. RaceFanX posted: 01.04.2008 - 4:17 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Billy Scott makes his debut under cool circumstances. Promoter and car owner Richard Howard held a contest called "The Big Chance Special" where fans got to vote which of several deserving drivers would get a chance to drive the #1 Junior Johnson-prepared Chevy in the World 600. Scott, a short-track driver from South Carolina won the contest but only mamanged a 22nd in the event. He'd make only one further start running in the World 600 again the next year. 5. Anonymous posted: 05.31.2008 - 11:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Tiny Lund's last race before Talladega in 1975 where he was killed 6. Anonymous posted: 06.27.2008 - 11:30 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I read that Gregg killed himself because he found out he had a deadly, incurable genetic disorder that slowly makes you lose all of your physical capabilites (probably Huntingtons or Lou Gehrig's disease) 7. GhostDog posted: 07.05.2009 - 10:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Another version is that his eyesight was altered with no hope of recovery after a road accident in France where he was for the Le Mans 24 Hours classic... and could not cope with having to retire from racing because of it... 8. Sébastien posted: 07.26.2009 - 10:27 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Billy Scott #1 also had "Ranger Motor Homes" as an associate sponsor. 9. 18fan posted: 09.21.2009 - 6:20 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Baker and Petty blew out the field until Petty went into three too hard and smacked the wall and the car was never the same. Pearson got the lead late on pit strategy, but Baker was too strong. It was weird when I was watching this on Car & Track and how fast Pearson was going down pit road. 10. allen posted: 04.03.2010 - 5:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Bobby Allison skips this race to do Indy for Penske and swears he'll never do it gain..73 Indy was a horror movie on wheels... 11. cjs3872 posted: 05.25.2012 - 12:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The entire month of May in racing in 1973 was one disaster after another, beginning with the infamous Winston 500, where 20 cars got swept up in one crash, including cars of two drivers that competed in the Indianapolis 500, Bobby Allison and Gordon Johncock (who won the Indianapolis 500 that year). Then of course, there was the rain and disaster-marred Indianapolis 500, in which there were three horrendous crashes (four if you include the one in the pits after the Swede Savage crash), three fatalities, and three days of rain which caused the race to only run 133 laps/332.5 miles. Not even the World 600 at Charlotte was immune to the rain and disasters that plagued the month of May in 1973. There was the terrible crash that Peter Gregg had early in the race in the final race for Cotton Owens' famous red #6 Dodges, then the hard crash that Vic Parsons had later on in the race, and yes, a rain delay about two-thirds of the way through the race. In the end, Buddy Baker made history as he became the first driver to both win this race two years in a row and win the race three times. It's also interesting that, despite fielding three cars at Indy (including one for Bobby Allison, who had won this race in 1971, and trying to qualify a fourth for Al Loquasto), Roger Penske also ran his AMC Matador in the 1973 World 600 with Dave Marcis. Marcis had about as much luck in this race as Penske's other drivers had at Indianapolis, as he went out after completing 204 laps with engine failure. (Allison went out at Indy after completing just one lap and Mark Donohue dropped out, as did so many others, with engine problems, windin up 13th. Gary Bettenhsen did finish fifth at Indy for Penske, but even he had a littany of mechanical problems that put him three laps behind.) 12. Sebastien posted: 11.08.2013 - 1:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) According to the broadcast, Jabe Thomas #25 was reliefed by Roy Mayne. Or maybe it's an error from their part. 13. DozierTheGreat posted: 01.26.2014 - 1:34 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Some Sponsors: #72-Union 76 Racing Oil #28-Lemon Tree Inn #24-Panasonic #18-Pizza Hut #95-KMart & Terminal Transport 14. rob posted: 05.23.2014 - 2:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) To WillG46 Pearson had missed races at Bristol and North Wilkesboro and was thus ineligible to tie Petty's record. Even so, his 1973 record was incredible. 15. simonracer posted: 03.06.2015 - 8:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) There was a 13 lap, 15 car consolation race for this event on May 26. Vic Parsons (#45) won, with Ed Negre (#08 Mercury) 2nd. Charlie Roberts (#77) was also in the race, as was Rick Newsome (Ford). Ed Sczech (#61 Chevrolet) qualified 23rd but crashed his car in practice and was forced to withdraw. 16. simonracer posted: 03.06.2015 - 8:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Rick Newsome is actually Rick Newsom. 17. binkerbo posted: 03.26.2015 - 2:16 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Charlie Roberts was also a DNQ in this race. A photo here... http://simracin40.proboards.com/thread/773/1973-winston-cup-photos?page=4 ...shows Charlie and Ed Negre crashing in a consolation race. The photo mentions that there were 13 DNQs. 18. saltsburgtrojanfan posted: 10.07.2015 - 2:55 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Caution 1: Lap 37-44: #6 accident turn 2 Caution 2: Lap 237-239: #71 spun turn 3 Caution 3: Lap 241-256: rain Caution 4: Lap 258-268: #45 accident turn 4 Caution 5: Lap 272-278: #92 accident turn 3 Caution 6: Lap 378-380: debris turn 3 19. saltsburgtrojanfan posted: 10.07.2015 - 2:59 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Correction Caution 5: #43,92 accident turn 3 20. Rob posted: 06.07.2018 - 9:29 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) How come there is a progression of slower speeds followed by faster speeds in the qualifying results ? 21. Anonymous posted: 06.07.2018 - 1:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Rob, probably due to several rounds of qualifying, but not like they do it now. Up until about fifteen years ago they would qualify on Friday and the top 25 would be locked in. The next day, anyone 25th or lower could go out for another try, suppose a driver spun on their Friday lap and initially qualified 40th, with the second chance they could start as high as 26th if they had the speed. It may have been that in the seventies there were more than two qualifying rounds. 22. Shawn Olmstead-Patterson posted: 08.24.2018 - 11:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Caution number 4 also had a red flag for rain 23. Rob posted: 07.29.2020 - 2:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @21. Likely just inadequacies in the NASCAR qualifying report. To have been based on your scenario, there would have been a week of qualifying sessions. 24. KW posted: 07.29.2020 - 2:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Pulled up some newspaper articles from May of 1973. Baker qualified on the poll on Wednesday, Wednesday's times also set the rest of the top 12. Darrell Waltrip was quickest on Thursday as that day set 13-24 (although it rained at the end and the last 4 were allowed to qualify on Friday) Friday saw the last 4 spots from Thursday and 25-36 places, and the last 4 qualified on Saturday. 25. RaceFanX posted: 07.29.2020 - 2:27 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Buddy Baker did a spin and win in this one as early in the second half of the race the #71 K&K Insurance Dodge blew a tire, just after David Pearson passed him for the lead, and it sent the red Charger for a loop in Turn 3. Despite that Baker still rallied back for his historic second-straight World 600 victory. 26. RaceFanX posted: 07.29.2020 - 2:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The later stages of this race were pretty solidly a battle between Buddy Baker and David Pearson once Richard Petty lost 28 laps in the pits for suspension repairs after his incident. Baker prevailed in the battle with Pearson only for a debris caution to come off with 22 laps to go, sending everyone to the pits. The Wood Brothers legendarily fast pit stops put Pearson in front as the team gambled on only changing the two left side tires while Harry Hyde and the K&K squad put new rubber all around on Baker's car. The strategy worked, while Pearson took off on the restart Baker got through traffic and ran him down to make the pass for the win shortly thereafter with 16 laps to go. Once he got out front Baker put the spurs to his Hemi-powered steed and pulled away to win. Third-place Cale Yarborough was fast in the closing laps but as he was a lap down he stood no chance of catching the top-2. Joe Frasson came into this race with a unique sponsorship from Pizza Hut on his red #18 Dodge Charger. Frasson qualified in the top-10 and led a lap early in the race, the only lap he led all season, but a mechanical failure later on left his marinara-colored Mopar's motor more cooked than a medium Meat Lovers. The Charlotte-area Pizza Hut franchises still liked what they saw and sponsored Frasson again at Charlotte later in the season. 27. possum posted: 07.29.2020 - 8:07 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) @24 - in that era NASCAR was still very much in awe of Indy, and tended to try and copy what they did at the 500. 4 days of qualifying is obviously an emulation of Indy's procedure. 28. rateus posted: 02.20.2021 - 2:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Roy Mayne qualified for Jabe Thomas, Ed Negre took over from John Sears after missing the field in his own car. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: