Daytona Countdown: '66

The King again dominant with second victory in three years

Richard Petty was more than a lap ahead of the field when the eighth Daytona 500 was called two laps shy of the 500-mile distance because of rain on Feb. 27, 1966.

A brand-new 1966 Plymouth Barracuda with a 365-horsepower Commando V8 would have sold for $2,637, meaning Petty could have bought 10 of them with his $28,150 winner's purse and still have enough money left over for a nice fishing rod and reel. The Great Barracuda is common in the western Atlantic Ocean, between Plymouth, Mass., and Brazil.

NASCAR ACCELERATION •   Know Your NASCAR •   Tickets for Daytona •   2004 Daytona 500 highlights •   Get TrackPass for 2005! ALSO IN 1966 ... •   Robert C. Weaver becomes the first black Cabinet member by being appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Jan. 13)  •   Venera 3 Soviet space probe crashes on Venus becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface (March 1)  •   The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them (June 13)  •   Sniper Charles Whitman kills 16 from Texas Tower in Austin (Aug. 1)  •   Truman Capote's Black and White Ball -- dubbed The Party of the Century -- is held in New York City (Nov. 28)  Courtesy: Wikipedia

If Petty would have wanted to take his Barracuda to Plymouth, the 789-mile drive from Level Cross, N.C., would have taken nearly 16 hours at freeway speeds -- or four hours and 54 minutes at Petty's race-winning speed of 160.927 mph.

On May 3, Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor played a game of Milton Bradley's Twister on The Tonight Show, sparking a huge run on the game. More than 3 million copies of Twister -- with its polka dot vinyl mat and spinner -- were sold in 1966.

A twister that hit Topeka, Kan., on June 8 destroyed 800 homes, damaged at least 3,000 more and killed 16 people. Lightnin' Strikes by Lou Christie was No. 3 on the Cash Box charts for Feb. 26.

Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels hit the charts with Jenny, Take A Ride, seven spots behind 634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.) by Wilson Pickett. Tommy Tutone had a hit in 1982 with another phone number: 867-5309 (Jenny).

The Spirograph was invented by Denys Fisher, who exhibited it in 1965 at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair. Kenner bought the distribution rights and introduced it to the United States in '66. The toy consisted of plastic gears and toothed rings, which drew a series of curved lines on a piece of paper. Spiro Agnew was elected governor of Maryland in 1966.

By mid-January, more than 190,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Vietnam. The Ballad of the Green Berets by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler was No. 2 on the Cash Box charts the week of Petty's second Daytona 500 victory.

In March, John Lennon announced the Beatles "are more popular than Jesus." In August, the Beatles played their last live concert, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Clint Eastwood, who played San Francisco cop Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry movies, starred in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in 1966.

Star Trek makes its television debut in 1966, along with Family Affair, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, That Girl, The Newlywed Game and The Monkees.

Current drivers born in 1966:
• Ricky Craven (May 24)

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