Back in the '60's and '70's NASCAR's "Golden Age" the competition was fierce. Most racing organizations-especially NASCAR, the NHRA, and the SCCA-which sponsored the Trans-Am series-said Manufacturers had to sell at least 500 units of any model year car or engine to the general public to race them. This rule brought us great stuff like the Super Duty Pontiac 421, the 427 Chevy, the 426 Hemi, the Z/28 Camaro, the Boss 302 and 429 Mustangs, Plymouth Superbird / Charger Daytona, Thunderbolt Fairlanes, Hemi Darts, and others I can't remember off the top of my head. Anyhow people loved NASCAR because the cars were instantly recognizable, and you could buy a similar car from your local dealer. That's where the term "Win on Sunday,Sell on Monday" came from. Another rule was bodystyles couldn't be more than 5 years old. After the Hemis, and Boss-Nines and other big-blocks were outlawed, and cubic inches limited to 366 ci- teams went to small-blocks. GM guys ran Chevelles and Monte Carlos with the ubiquitous 350 Chevy. Ford guys ran the venerable 351 Cleveland and Mopar guys ran the 360 Chrysler. The competition was still hot. Cale Yarborough won a lot of races for Chevrolet, David Pearson won a bunch in the Wood Brothers Mercurys, and Richard Petty won a bunch for Dodge. Richard and Pearson's duels at Daytona are still legendary. However-after the '79 season-NASCAR told Petty he could no longer run his iconic '74 Charger that had won so many races in 1980, citing the 5 year rule on bodystyles. Petty tried to run a '78 Dodge Magnum body, but it wasn't competitive. Then team Petty switched to GM. They figured out that the slope-nosed, fastback 1976-77 Olds Cutlass was much more aerodynamic than the flat-nosed, notchback Monte Carlos and Chevelles that most GM teams were running. Petty won several races in a row. The other NASCAR teams griped, because Petty was running the Ubiquitous small-block Chevy race engine. They argued that Petty should have to run an Oldsmobile engine, their train of thought being that the Olds engine wouldn't be nearly as powerful as the Chevy. I don't know why Team Petty didn't at least try to run an Olds engine and see if it was competitive. Obviously, the small-block Chevy had much more aftermarket speed equipment, and racing development than the 350 Olds. However, the high-performance "W31" 350 Olds from 1968-70 was grossly UNDER-RATED at 325 hp; and was competitive in stock and super stock class drag racing with the Vaunted LT-1 350 Chevys and 340 Mopars. Further, back in the 70's ( and up until his death a few years ago ) Joe Mondello was THE Olds guru. Obviously,he devoted a lot of time to 455 engines, because a lot of customers wanted big-blocks, but he also built some stompin' 350's that went well beyond stock "W31" performance, and he discovered that you could use 455 heads on a 350 block, with a custom intake manifold. ( Today, Edelbrock's 350 Performer RPM will work in this application, but it didn't exist back then ) The 455 heads flowed way more than 350 heads. With the big port, big valve 455 heads, the 350 Olds would have breathed as well as the vaunted 351 "Cleveland" Fords. ( Which have ports and valves the size of a 454 Chevy ). If Team Petty had collaborated with Mondello Performance, I have no doubt that they could have built a 350 Olds racing engine that could run with the 350 Chevys and 351 Fords. And the bottom end of the small-block Olds was bulletproof. If it could withstand being converted to diesel and running 22.5:1 compression with minor changes,it should have held up on gasoline for 500 miles at Daytona! I'm sure it was just easier and cheaper to run the Chevy race engine. Luckily for Petty-in the late '70's GM was playing musical engines because of smog laws. Depending on model, besides the 301, 350 and 400 Pontiac engines, you could get a Pontiac Firebird with a Buick 231 V6, a 305 or 350 Chevy and a 403 Olds. You could buy an Olds Cutlass with a 305 Chevy, a Buick Regal with a 301 Pontiac, an Olds Omega with a Buick 231 V6 or a 305 Chevy, and a Cadillac Seville with a 350 Olds. Petty argued that since GM was selling Oldsmobiles with Chevrolet engines in them to the public, he ought to be able to race one. NASCAR sided with Petty and said that teams could run any GM engine in any GM body. Other teams quickly switched to the more aerodynamic Cutlass bodies. In my mind, this was the beginning of the end. Through the '80's they did this. The championship winning Buick that GM was comemmerating with the Grand National had a 350 Chevy in it, not a Turbo V6 like the production model!! When GM cancelled the G-bodys in 1988 things really went to hell. I don't know why GM teams didn't simply switch to Camaros and Firebirds. They were rear-drive and remained in production until 2002. ( I know the Camaro was resurrected in 2009 ). Instead NASCAR allowed them to run front-drive Chevy Lumina bodies on a tube frame. Which led to Ford running Taurus bodies, Dodge running Intrepids, and Toyota running Camrys. Ugh!! Which brought us to now where the "Car of tomorrow" is a plastic body on a tube frame running 1965 technology. No roller cams? No overhead cams? I think it would be much better if they allowed to Ford run Mustangs with the Coyote, Chrysler to run Chargers or Challengers with Hemis, Chevy to run Camaros with the LS engine and Toyota to run the Lexus coupe with the i-Force V8. That would be way cool and the cars would be easily recognizable. And they need to change their scoring system-I've never been able to understand it. They need to get back to their roots-"National Association of Stock Car Racing"!!!! I know that since the '50's Robert Duvall's immortal words from "Days of Thunder"-"There's nothing stock about a stock car" have been true. However-the cars were at least production based, up until the '80's when Bill Elliot drove a T-Bird and GM guys had Monte Carlo SS's. After that, Chevy Lumina and Beretta bodies? Yuk. Mastermind
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