Dale Earnhardt Jr. travels to South Carolina to explore an outdoor events venue that, in another life, was a thriving NASCAR hotspot. Once there he finds key players in an infamous 1966 boycott, the consequence of an epic manufacturers’ arms race.
Featured in this episode is:
Bobby Allison
NASCAR legend Bobby Allison rose from a humble upbringing in Miami, Florida to being one of the most successful stock car racers in the history of the sport, retiring with 84-Cup wins, a 1983 Championship and three Daytona 500 victories. In his late teens, Allison got first hand experience in a Cup garage working for the dominant Carl Kiekhaefer Mercury Outboard Motors team. From there Allison entered the NASCAR modified ranks and would go on to win back-to-back national championship titles in 1964 and 65. He would enter the Cup circuit and find his first victory in 1966 at Oxford Plains Speedway in Maine. The rest of his 718-start Cup career is legendary: four Southern 500s, two World 600s, and three Talladega 500s. Toss in the 1980 IROC championship and 2011 NASCAR Hall of Fame induction and you’ve got one of the most iconic racing careers of all time. Bobby joined the Lost Speedways crew at Columbia Speedway to discuss the NASCAR engine wars of the 1960s and his triumphs at the track, which include victories in the NASCAR Grand National East division in the 1970s.
Bondy Long
When discussing the NASCAR engine war that took place between Ford and Chrysler in the mid-1960s, one of the most insightful minds is former car owner Bondy Long. An early NASCAR wunderkind, Long became a successful Ford-factory backed car owner in 1963 and fielded cars for legends Bobby Isaac, Ned Jarrett and Marvin Panch. Long’s cars would log 29-victories and the 1965 Cup championship with Jarrett behind the wheel. Long appeared on Lost Speedways at Columbia Speedway where the great Ford racing strike began in 1966 and filled viewers in on the events happening behind the scenes in one of the most tumultuous periods of NASCAR’s past.
Watch Lost Speedways Season 2, Episode 4 "Columbia Speedway: Engine Wars" on PeacockTV.
