Phil Patterson writes:
>...it reminded me of the 1960 Nascar compact car class race at Daytona. The
> Valants so totally dominated this race that they cancelled the race and series
> completely. But does anyone else have any more info, or pics of these cars?
The only picture I have ever seen of a '60 NASCAR Valiant
was actually Lee Petty's #42, so if Richard had a #43
as well that'd be two. The picture I saw was a B&W but
it appeared to be painted like the big ones.
I believe the NASCAR Valiants ran the "Hyper-Pak" setup,
which was a dealer option in the early '60s for the /6.
This included a 4v carb (IIRC Carter AFB) and manifold
(heavily influenced by the B/RB crossrams), a radical
grind cam, and I'm pretty sure some kind of header.
Contemporary reports say the Hyper-Pak was a screamer
but too radical for "normal" street use. It was also
quite expensive when new, and if you can find the parts
now, think $trato$pheric.
Not sure what NASCAR's rules were in that class at that
time, but the Petty team may have even been able to
legally get away with dropping in a cast-iron 225, which
was not supposed to be available on a '60 Valiant, but
was certainly a regular production MoPar engine (and
would've bolted in just fine). I do know in the early
years NASCAR's biggest question was whether or not a
part had a factory part #; this allowed Lee Petty to
run Dodge truck axles in his '50 Plymouth for example.
This would've given the Valiants a displacement edge
in addition to their other advantages, since neither
Corvair nor Falcon/Comet shared engine blocks with the
fullsize Chevies/Fords.
There is a book out now covering all Petty Enterprises
race cars, including IIRC the borrowed Buick that Lee
rolled over when first starting. Great pics., including
a shot of Richard's '59 Savoy showing sponsorship by a
DeSoto-Plymouth dealer (and a great F>>L logo!) and the
'65 Barracuda Richard ran on the dragstrip. I'm pretty
sure the Valiants are covered here as well, but I can't
remember the name of the book...
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