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SUPERCARS: The Story of the Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth SuperBird

by Frank Moriarty

 

 

 

Published by Howell Press 1995; Deluxe Paperback Edition 2000

Winner in "Book of the Year" 1996 Contest STP/American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association Writing Contest.

The winged Dodge Charger Daytonas and Plymouth SuperBirds were the most unusual cars ever manufactured by an American major auto maker. This book reveals how these cars were designed and developed and chronicles their astonishing success on the superspeedways of NASCAR. Many of the engineers who created these cars had come to Chrysler from NASA programs. For the first time, aircraft aerodynamic concepts were applied to automobiles as Chrysler desperately sought to reclaim domination in stock car racing. The result of the engineering task force was victory in the prestigious Daytona 500 and the 1970 season championship. In addition to meeting the engineers, the reader will hear from the men who drove these amazing machines, ranging from Richard Petty to Pete Hamilton. The book's foreword is written by NASCAR legend Buddy Baker, who used a Dodge Charger Daytona to become the first man to shatter the 200 mile per hour mark on a superspeedway. Photos from Chrysler and the archives of famed racing photographer Pal Parker complete the project.

"The book is beautifully written, entertaining from cover to cover, and very well illustrated." -- Stock Car Racing Magazine 

Selection from Chapter Five: The Aero Wars

            The new decade began with two aerodynamic wing cars poised for combat in the NASCAR Grand National arena -- the proven Dodge Charger Daytona, winner of the final 1969 superspeedway race, and the brand new Plymouth SuperBird.

            The wing cars were generally not used at smaller racetracks.  These exotic secret weapons were designed to be raced when the stakes were highest -- on the towering banks of the very fastest superspeedways.  But there was one racetrack with elements of both short tracks and superspeedways -- the nine-turn, 2.62 mile road course at Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California.  It was here, on January 18, that the first battle of the 1970 aero wars would be fought.

            Richard Petty was back with Plymouth, and Petty Enterprises was fielding two new SuperBirds at Riverside.  Of course, Richard had driven the SuperBird in testing sessions in the weeks before the team headed west to California for the Motor Trend 500.  But cruising around a superspeedway all by yourself was one thing -- racing in close quarters with 41 other Grand National cars was something else entirely.  During practice sessions, Richard realized he had a problem with his 18.5 foot wing car.

            "It was the first time we ran the car.  We got there, and the thing was so long with that nose that you just couldn't see -- it just kept on going!" Petty laughs.  "So I sent the boys down to a local auto parts place and they bought us a radio antenna.  We put it on the front spoiler and we ran it up where I could see it sticking out there so I could tell how far that thing was out there!  Once I drove it in one race, I had some depth perception then.  But to begin with, I didn't know how close I could get behind anybody or not.  But I had that little radio aerial out there and I learned that it was out there four or five feet.  Then we took it off and didn't run with it anywhere else, but that was how I learned how far that nose was out there."

            At Riverside, the other Petty Enterprises SuperBird was to be driven by the popular California driver Dan Gurney, who had won this event five times previously.  Although officially listed as a Petty entry, in reality the Gurney car was the Plymouth engineering SuperBird -- making a competition appearance much as the engineering Charger Daytona had in the week before the first Talladega race.  And, like the engineering Daytona at Talladega, the dark blue number 42 engineering SuperBird became the fastest qualifier with a lap of 112.060 mph.  Parnelli Jones had turned a quicker time in the Wood Brothers' Mercury, but his lap was disallowed by NASCAR because Jones' car was mounted with an ineligible type of Firestone tires.

            The SuperBirds showed promise during the Motor Trend 500, but when the race ended wily AJ Foyt had used his skill, experience, and a Ford to win the race.  USAC competitor Roger McCluskey, in possession of one of the new SuperBirds, finished three seconds behind Foyt to take second.  Gurney and Petty took the checkered flag in fifth and sixth.

            All in all the wing car performances at Riverside were respectable, but the cars weren't really designed to turn left and right since road course events were a rarity on the Grand National circuit.  The most important test of the wing cars was just weeks away -- the 1970 Daytona 500.

            Gurney's presence as a Petty Enterprises driver had been a one-race deal, and at Daytona the second Petty-blue SuperBird would be driven by Massachusetts driver Pete Hamilton.  "They wanted two front line Plymouths," recalls Petty, "so they came to us and asked, 'Will you take on another car?'  I said, 'OK, we'll do that.  Now, you're wanting us to do this, you're paying the bills and doing the whole deal, who do you want as a driver?' 

            "They gave us a list of four or five drivers," Richard continues, "and when we looked at the list, as far as we were concerned Pete was head and shoulders above anybody else they had on there.  Even though he'd never won a Grand National race, he'd won Rookie of the Year and he'd run good from time to time.  He'd won other championships and we thought he was a capable driver."

            "I was ready to compete as a Grand National driver," Hamilton recalls of that time in his career.  "I had gotten to know the engineering people at Chrysler, and I got to know the tire engineering people at Goodyear and Firestone, and I think that helped me.  I attended the University of Maine for a year in engineering, and I was intensely interested in the mechanical part of the car.  Richard knew that I had done my fair share of winning on the short tracks and he saw that I worked on the car, which is what he did."

            Hamilton's first runs in a Grand national car had come in a Charger 500 prepared by Jim Ruggles.  "I had run about 163 mph in a Sportsman car at Daytona," Pete says.  "I got in that Charger and the first lap I ran was 187 mph.  So that was 24 mph faster than I had ever been -- on the first lap!  So that was a big change, buddy, and I just knew the first time I made that lap I was just committing hari-kari.  I knew I was either going to make that lap or die.  That was the atmosphere."  Clearly Hamilton had the will to win by any means necessary.

            "I think that Richard saw some abilities, saw some desire, a fire to win, and he knew that I was capable of working on the car and knowledgeable about the car," Hamilton says.   "I think that type of driver is important to him.  So I got a call from Richard Petty to come and drive his second car.   It wouldn't have made any difference if it wasn't a SuperBird -- it would have made no difference if it was a Jeep Cherokee."

            Although Pete had been at Riverside with the Petty team, his duties were limited to helping prepare the Gurney car.  Pete explains, "I worked on the car while Gurney drove, because I knew nothing about a road course.  Then we went on to Daytona."

            When the Petty Enterprises team pulled into Daytona International Speedway in February of 1970, there was something that Pete Hamilton had yet to do -- he had never driven the SuperBird he would be racing in.  "The first time I ever drove a wing car was at Daytona," Pete reveals.  "I never tested in it.  We went to Daytona, unloaded the beast, turned it on, and put it to the floor in high gear and saw what was going to happen.  That was it -- no testing."

            Pete Hamilton placed sixth in the first 125-mile qualifying race, one position better than Richard Petty.  Under the complicated Daytona qualifying procedures, that meant Pete would start ninth in the 500.  Evidence of the expected Ford-Chrysler showdown could be seen in the front row of the starting grid -- Cale Yarborough's Wood Brothers Mercury was on the pole with a run of 194.015 mph, but right next to him was second-fastest qualifier Buddy Baker in his Cotton Owens Charger Daytona.

            When the drivers in the 1970 Daytona 500 took the green flag at the 2.5-mile superspeedway to begin the race, Pete Hamilton began to drive the only way he knew how -- flat-out.  "I was a lot younger and crazier than Richard, and we always ran at the big places a lot faster," Hamilton explains.  "I don't mean that in an insulting way.  At that point the young driver, the 27 year old Pete Hamilton, as compared to the 32 or 33 year old Richard Petty, Richard had five more years of experience and knew that he could get hurt on a superspeedway.

            "Pete Hamilton had no idea that he could get hurt -- he was young and stupid," Hamilton insists.  "There is no way I could get hurt here' -- absolutely fearless.  That is a big advantage to have in a driver at a big joint.  Not only did I not have any fear of getting hurt in the car but I had no fear of hanging my ass out and sticking the car in the fence, because I just did what I thought I was supposed to do.  That makes an absolutely treacherous race car driver -- if he finishes."

            The experienced Grand National drivers weren't at all familiar with the aggressive Hamilton, and Pete used that fact to his advantage in the Daytona 500.  "They were clueless, and if you throw your car sideways in front of an old-timer it would scare them to death," Pete says.  "When you have a book on a guy, you trust him and want to run close to him.  When you don't have a book on a guy -- whew!  You don't want to get near this wild man!  That's a big advantage when the other drivers don't have a book on you.  And I had that card, and I played that card."

            Just seven laps into the biggest NASCAR race of the year, Richard Petty's engine blew in the number 43 SuperBird.  Most observers expected to see Hamilton's blue number 40 wing car pull down pit road so Petty could take over the driver seat of the other Petty Enterprises entry.  Richard had other ideas.

            "I didn't run but a few laps before I blew a motor," Petty recalls.  "So that eliminated us, and then when I came into the pits everybody really anticipated me getting in Pete's car.  I said, 'Hey -- this is not a second line car, this is a first line car.  This is Pete Hamilton's car.  He's going to do the best that he can with it.'"

            Hamilton was indeed doing his best, and by lap 63 he had already put his SuperBird into first place before Bobby Isaac stole the position in his winged Daytona.  But Hamilton, despite charging hard, drove a smart race and was in a good position as the laps dwindled.  On lap 187, Dick Brooks' SuperBird suffered an engine failure and the final caution flag of the day came out.  David Pearson, whose Holman-Moody Ford had been extremely tough all day, was the leader and pitted quickly for two tires.  Hamilton guided his SuperBird down pit road and the Petty Enterprises crew provided him with four fresh tires.  The green flag came out with nine laps remaining -- just 22.5 more miles to race around the banking to win stock car racing's biggest prize.  But first Hamilton had to get by the crafty Pearson, known as "The Silver Fox."

            "When they dropped that green flag, I never let off," Hamilton remembers.  "Earlier in the race I had been letting off, but now I never let off the gas and the car somehow made it.  Pearson was first, I was second, and Bobby Allison was ahead of me and I knew he was a lap down.  I remember pulling up beside him going through turns one and two -- he was in the second lane and I remember being right up against the wall.  He kind of sensed that and he let me by because he knew he was a lap down."

            Now Pete Hamilton had nothing in his sights but the rear of Pearson's blue and gold Torino Talladega.  "That put me close to David, close enough to him," Hamilton relates.  "I got up there and I passed him, passed him on the bottom."

            That put Pete in the lead, but the best place to be at the end of a superspeedway race is often second -- where a slingshot pass can be set up on the final lap.  "I was so knowledge-less about the draft," Pete admits.  "As soon as I passed him he dropped in behind me.  The realization came to me that he was where he needed to be to win the race, in second, not in first.  So off we went."

            It had all come down to this.   Ford versus Chrysler.  The greatest Ford team, Holman-Moody, against the legendary Petty Enterprises.  The Torino Talladega against the SuperBird.  The cagey veteran against the fearless young driver on 33 degrees of treacherous banking.  It was everything the greatest stock car race of them all, the Daytona 500, should be.

            "When he was in the draft he could get down the straightaway better than us but he wasn't that good in the corner," Hamilton remembers of Pearson's late-race charges.  "He took a couple of stabs at me.  He made one good shot at me and came up underneath me and got beside me.  I remember holding him tight, and I remember coming off the fourth turn and seeing him kind of dropping back -- and he never got another chance.  The race was over.  I never let off for a lap after the checkered flag.  I ran that car just as hard as it would go for another lap -- because I wasn't taking any chances!"

            Pete Hamilton won the 1970 Daytona 500, and the SuperBird lived up to its name.  For the first time since 1966 the most important NASCAR race and the invaluable bragging rights that came along with it belonged to Chrysler.


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