AUTOMOTIVE POSTER · 1969 DODGE CHARGER DAYTONA
The Day Speed Scared the Racers
Talladega, 1969: tire trouble, a driver walkout, an unlikely winner—and the race car that made history twice.
The Dodge Charger Daytona won on its NASCAR debut. Most of the sport's biggest stars had already packed up and left.
Welcome to Talladega, Alabama, in September 1969, where a brand-new superspeedway met a brand-new winged Dodge—and the first battle wasn't between the cars. It was between the people who would drive them and the people who expected them to race.
The Race Before the Race
Talladega's 2.66-mile oval was enormous, steeply banked, and brutally fast. Testing produced a serious worry: could the tires of 1969 survive those speeds for an entire race?
Richard Petty's drivers' association pressed the issue. NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. even drove laps at around 160 mph to demonstrate the track, but the drivers expected to race considerably faster. With the tire-safety dispute unresolved, roughly 30 leading drivers walked out.
France ran the event anyway, recruiting a patched-together field. NASCAR called cautions about every 25 laps so crews could inspect or change tires. The winner was Richard Brickhouse, driving the No. 99 Charger Daytona in place of Charlie Glotzbach, who had joined the boycott.
It was Brickhouse's only win in NASCAR's top division. A new car winning its debut is impressive. Doing it while the sport argues about whether anyone should be racing? That's almost suspiciously good material for a movie.
Then Came the Number Nobody Could Ignore
On March 24, 1970, Buddy Baker drove a Daytona to 200.447 mph during an officially timed test at Talladega—the first officially credited 200-mph lap on a closed course in a stock car. That was more than 30 mph faster than the pole speed at that year's Indianapolis 500.
The record-setting car had its own strange history. It began as a magazine-test Charger 500, was stolen and stripped, then found perched on concrete blocks before being rebuilt as a racer. From blocks to 200 mph: that's quite a comeback.
Detroit's Accidental Word Game
In February 1969, LeeRoy Yarbrough won the Daytona 500 in a Ford Torino Talladega. That September, a Dodge Daytona won the inaugural race at Talladega. The manufacturers were fighting over speed; the names were apparently fighting over who got the last laugh.
The engineers brought the wing. The drivers brought their judgment. The air, as usual, refused to negotiate.