72 Chevelle NASCAR

[Art]

This build is a replica of sorts of a Winston Cup car my dad entered in the '73 Winston Western 500, with Jerry Grant

driving. Grant was coming off of a headline-filled season the year before, coming close to winning the Indy 500 and

becoming the first driver to average a lap over 200 MPH at Ontario Motor Speedway in one of Dan Gurney's Eagles.

When I first thought about building this car, I had never seen it. My dad did not have any pictures of it either, but he

did describe it somewhat. He remembered it was white, and thought it had local Riverside McDonalds sponsorship.

I started gathering some reference material and found some programs from the event on ebay, a record book, and an issue of

Stock Car Racing Magazine that had an article reporting the race, including a paragraph on Grant's participation. No

pictures surfaced, unfortunately, probably not helped by the fact that they only completed about 5 laps.

While continuing to search for references, I came a cross another program that had a race-day insert in it with the

starting line-up and qualifying times on it. I had to have it, even though I already had two programs. Well, I lost the

bid, so I contacted the seller and told him if he would ask his buyer if he would sell me a copy and why. He did, and the

buyer loved the story and sent me a copy.

About six moths later, completely out of the blue, I received an email from the gentleman that sent me the line-up insert

saying that while he was converting old films to video, he thinks he found a glimpse of my dad's car, and included a still

shot he took. I now had a picture! Turns out it wasn't McDonald's, Tastee Freez instead.



I planned to start with the MPC Hurtubise kit, so I looked long and hard for one. I had one as a kid, and still have a few

of those parts lying around, but not enough to be useful. So I found a complete kit on ebay, which took a while because I

wasn't willing to pay what some guys are asking for the kit. I got mine for about $30. It turned out the decals were

missing, but that was OK with me since I wasn't planning to use them anyway. But I also realized that I didn't get the

same release of this kit as I had before. The one I got this time has the 1970 body and the wrong wheels in it.

So I got an AMT 72 Chevelle kit, which looks to be the same mold. The dimensions are exactly like the Hurtubise car. I also got a set of PPP wheels.







Here are some of the differences.









I plan to build this pretty much stock, but the engine in the old MPC kit is horrible. The valve covers are incorrect, as is the manifold and all kinds of stuff, so I will be using the one from the AMT kit.

[Art]

Here's the page of the program with this car on the entry list, #79w towards the bottom. Some pretty legendary names on this page!

[Deleted]

looking forward to seeing this one go together.
duane

[sandysixtysfan]

Jul 17, 2014 3:33:07 GMT -8 @racerbrown said:

looking forward to seeing this one go together.
duane

Looking forward to this build also!

Sandy

[Chris K. Hale]

Very Cool Story and I always love your Replica builds.. get it on!!!!

[Art]

Thanks for looking, guys! I hope to make some progress soon.

[dustymojave]

I'm not a Chevy guy. But I have some Chevelle kits of the era set aside to build a Riverside NASCAR racer. The project is WAY in the back of the line for the back burner. I had not settled on which car to model. But I worked as an official at the Riverside NASCAR events of the time. Cal Club provided the track workers for NASCAR Riverside races, and I was supplementing my Tech Inspection and Rules Enforcement duties (post race weigh-ins and engine tear-downs, etc.) with Wreck Impounds and corner flagging. For the NASCAR races, I did flagging. I was familiar with Jerry Grant from his road racing. I remember some Chevelles and Monte Carlos racing that event, But I really can't recall your dad's car. In fact, none of the Chevies stand out in my memory of the races then, other than Bobby Allison's red and gold Coke sponsored Monte Carlo which was one of 2 leaders.

Here is a link to race results for that event

Racing Reference Info - 1973 Winston Western 500 - Riverside

It shows the entrant as "Laski Racing", the car as a '72 Chevy, laps completed as 4, and the cause of DNF as engine failure.

Definitely cool history even if the car did DNF. Always better to be a participant than to watch on TV or from the stands.

As a corner flagman at those NASCAR races, one of the most memorable things was Richard Petty's line through the Esses. He would come out of Turn 2 and basically head straight for the entrance of Turn 6 not much caring how much he got into the dirt on the way. I suppose that was a result of many years of racing dirt short tracks, but to someone accustomed to the finesse approach of most road racers, it looked rather crude. It was quite effective nonetheless. That same year, I was also an official at the 1st Mickey Thompson Riverside Offroad Championship Grand Prix at the same location, but taking a VERY different course layout on mostly dirt. Quite different from the NASCAR race, except for Richard Petty.