History Richard Petty's Drag Barracuda

pretty sure it was ...alot of stuff was done to the shell. think the magazine shown on the first page , is the one with the build shots. definently a trick car with a bunch of nascar tricks thrown in....

 

GOTGAS...it may be a stretch to say petty saved the 426 hemi, but 1 thig is sure. he certinaly helped! the man beat sox and martin, ernie the farmer, and many other top dogs. i'am sure they were overjoyed when he went racing NASCAR style again. MR. PETTY drag racing owe's you big time! call me pop...or the old FART!

 

Yeah, '64-66 Barracudas are dirt CHEAP still, as long as it's not a Formula S. These are cool little cars....a clone, or similar style car would rule.

 

the petty cuda as was posted allready was in deed buried behind his shop and dug up later to access enlarging the shop
mopar collectors guide ran pics and story of "finding" the car its just a twisted rusted nothing hulk now the only way it could be restored is by rebodying it (which is a capitol sin in the mopar world) and richard never liked the car anyway and after the unfortinate accident he didnt want to be reminded of it so they buried it

 

I don't know if it still exists, but McEwen's car would be another cool one to see cloned.

 

It does and is restored.

 

http://www.nitrogeezers.com/Hemi%20Cuda%201.htm

 

I saw the McEwen car a few years ago at the Shelto Dragstrip Reunion. It was in an enclosed car trailer....fairly complete, missing running gear.

 

As late as '68, I saw the blue 22 jr car run at the inaugural race at the Bristol, TN Raceway, some kind of an NHRA championship event.

 

The inaugural race at Bristol was in 1965. The only time NHRA ran a class for "Match Bash" cars which was won by Dave Strickler. It's the 43jr. Also the car wasn't ran after 1965. Richard went back to turning left in 1966.

 

one question about the car....the build shots i have seen , shows the car with a 10" wheel and tire. all the shots of the car from when it was being raced , show it with smaller slicks and wheels. was the car not legal with that setup..?

 

Thanks for posting this link. After seeing it I remembered reading about it back when they found it. My memory must be going.

 

Richard Petty vs Arnie Bestwick

 

I've been told soon after this shot was taken the fatal accident occured.

 

I think maybe the shots with the smaller tires he was trying to run it "class legal" and not in match race trim. The smaller tires you see on the car may be 8.20's as opposed to 10" tires. I think Richard ran this car in C/A once in awhile.

 

Today I asked some local guys about this, from whom I had heard rumors of this car before. I was told that there were 2 cars...the one that killed the boy was buried behind the shop, and the other one was owned by someone in Piny Flats, TN. One of the guys I talked too was pretty heavy into Petty cars in the early '90s, He had a race car body and one of those Petty Volares street cars at that time. Once again, this could be just rumors, But this fellow seemed to know what he was talking about...
Sam

 

Take a good look at Petty's car. It certainly looks photoshopped in there to me.

 

They didn't have Photoshop in 65 did they?

Oh they called it scissors and paste!

 

I found that picture on Hot Rod magazines website but after I posted it it thought the Petty car looked photoshopped.

 

Lots of urban(or maybe rural) legends about this car.

 

The pic. of is not the pic. before the accident. That pic. is at Piedmont dragstrip in North Carolina.

 

Hey guys, living here in east tn. I've always heard the barracuda went to a man named Ratliff in Knoxville TN. I have a pic of the cuda on a hauler with "Ratliff" on the side of the truck being hauled into Bristol. I'll ask around.

 

Original post Tom Davison: As late as '68, I saw the blue 22 jr car run at the inaugural race at the Bristol, TN Raceway, some kind of an NHRA championship event

Thanks for setting me straight on that. I had forgotton that I attended Bristol twice...'65 and '68...and the following 40 years blurred them into one in my mind.

I typed 22 jr. with the other jr number on my brain....Tony Nancy's roadster's number from the west coast. I'm glad your memory is better than mine.

 

I remember the driver ban on NASCAR in '65 very well and many NASCAR drivers went drag racing that year. I remember when drag races were run on pit road at Charlotte Motor Speedway and at one race Fred Lorenzen drove Phil Bonner's 427 Falcon against Junior Johnson driving a Thunderbolt which I believe belonged to Bondy Long.....but that was a long time ago. I AM sure "Fast Freddie" was driving Bonner's Falcon. Years later I organized a Holman-Moody Reunion and Fred brought his then 16 year old son with him. He had no clue how famous his father was until that weekend. I also found out that weekend Fred got his start in racing in Illinois drag racing a1954 Olds. He told me he liked drag racing (he and Arnie Beswick sometimes raced each other) but he only got a trophy if he won. He switched to round track racing when he found out they paid cash for winning.

 

Not a very good picture of 43jr. on the Ratliff car hauler.I'm good friends with Pete Haldiman,the guy that built the cloan.He said in researching the car they did build a second car that's still out there some where.

 

Great thread. Always liked the King. Lots of good info here, Thanks guys.

 

I remember when that accident happened. It occured at a drag strip in the New Hope community near Dallas GA, about 20 miles from where I live. I was 12 or 13 at the time, so it would have been '64 or '65.

 

cool shot. you can see that the rear wheelwells are moved up about 6" or so .

 

Call 704.924.9404 ask ask for Richard for the real deal on the car

 

No info to offer but I do seem to recall seeing this car in a B/W pic in the tower at Bristol about 5 yrs. ago. Been too long ago to remember for sure
but there were framed prints in the hallways on the first floor showing the
tracks history.