Boycotted race in '69 led to surprise winner, changes

The unpredictability that is racing at NASCAR's largest track, Talladega Superspeedway, has resulted in perhaps more surprise winners than any other venue on the circuit.

Dick Brooks, Lennie Pond, Ron Bouchard, Bobby Hillin Jr., Phil Parsons and Brian Vickers (so far) all scored their lone Cup victories on the high-banked, 2.67-mile superspeedway at the edge of the Talladega National Forest. But the tradition of unheralded winners started right from the first race in 1969, with a journeyman driver from the Tar Heel State named Richard Brickhouse.

In testing that summer for the inaugural Talladega 500, the new but already rough and bumpy track surface began to chew up tires at an accelerated pace. In addition, drivers began to experience blurred vision and physical discomfort from the bouncing they experienced at speeds of close to 200 mph.

• Purchase tickets
• Book your travel

At the same time, mounting concerns over the general state of the sport -- including purse money, driver safety, better insurance and pensions -- led Richard Petty and 11 other drivers to meet in secret in August to form the Professional Drivers' Association, with Petty as president. A few years earlier, Curtis Turner had been banned for life by NASCAR president Bill France for trying to start a driver's union, but this time, the PDA was betting that Big Bill would never bar a fan favorite like Petty.

But the looming controversy over a potentially viable drivers' union came to a head almost immediately, when teams showed up in mid-September at then-Alabama International Speedway. Even though Charlie Glotzbach came within a split-second of the first 200 mph lap in stock-car history when he won the pole, many drivers were still unsure whether the track was safe enough for a 500-mile race, since Goodyear and Firestone had still been unable to come up with a suitable tire compound for the speeds at which the cars were running.

France then took matters into his own hands. He strapped himself into a car and ran 50 laps without incident. But the association was unmoved by the display, and when negotiations broke down the day before the race, France got on the public address system and told the teams that weren't going to race to leave the track. Petty and 30 others packed up their gear -- including Glotzbach -- in a group boycott. France was able to round up enough non-association drivers and cars, including some Camaros and Mustangs from the Grand American race earlier in the weekend, to cobble together a 36-car field.

Bobby Isaac, who didn't join the PDA, started from the pole and led in the early going. But while some teams struggled with tire wear from the high speeds, Brickhouse, driving a top-level Nichels Engineering car vacated by Paul Goldsmith -- and a team car to Glotzbach's -- learned something very interesting. The closer he ran to the wall, the better the car handled, and even more importantly, tire wear was significantly decreased. Running in a groove by himself, Brickhouse began to click off consistent laps in the high 190s.

Even though Jim Vandiver and Ramo Stott had led the majority of the race, Brickhouse was coming like a freight train in the closing laps. He passed Vandiver with 12 laps remaining and pulled away for a 7-second victory in front of a crowd announced at 62,000.

Brickhouse would make only 13 more Cup starts in his career, three of those coming almost a decade after he originally walked away from the sport after the 1970 season. The Rocky Point, N.C., resident was credited with a total of 13 top-10 finishes in 39 starts, but his biggest claim to fame was winning that first Talladega race.

Because France was able to pull off a successful race despite the lack of star drivers, the PDA was placed in a no-win situation. Petty and David Pearson were the first to break the boycott, racing four days later in Columbia, S.C. And most of the other PDA drivers returned at Martinsvile the following weekend.

The association was soon dissolved, but not without some concessions from the sanctioning body and promoters. NASCAR agreed to implement a Winner's Circle program, which still exists today. And even though there hasn't been another attempt to unionize, the current generation of drivers has gained much more of a voice in the overall operation of the sport, thanks in large part to the drivers who boycotted Talladega in 1969.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.