One Day At Concord Motor Speedway

I spent many evenings watching racing at Concord and Metrolina. But one summer day stands out. I lived just a few miles from Concord Speedway so I always detoured by the track. This summer day, I heard cars turning laps at the track. The grandstand gate was open so I walked up to see what was happening.

Several cars were in the pits and a few were on the track. Noticing the back gate to the pits were open I jumped back in my truck and rode around back. I asked the man at the back gate if I could go in the pits and he told me to go ahead. I was in heaven as I pulled across the track (no tunnels at a dirt track) and pulled in to the pits. What caught my attention was that a K&K Insurance sponsored Dodge was in the pits. Looking just like the Grand National car with a #71 and Bobby Unsers name on the roof. After some snooping around I found that local regular Chuck Piazza was drivng the car that day. Another local driver Hayward Plyler was there in his #14 Camaro.

Then it hit me, I didn't have a camera with me! Back in the truck, speeding the short distance to my house, back to the track, back in the pits with my trusty 35mm in hand. I spent the next few hours taking shots of the pits and action on the track. Unfortunately I was not that good with a camera so I didn't end up with that many usable photos. But here are a few.

	Chuck Piazza on the outside and Hayward Plyler on the inside coming out of turn 4.
	A shot of Chuck passing by the pits.

This car had been at Pike's Peak with Bobby Unser driving. It was a prototype of the Chrysler kit car program that was released in the mid 70s. As a side note, young unknown Dale Earnhardt drove the next generation at Concord in testing a few years later. If memory serves well, the Chrysler engineers were impressed with the young drivers ability to relate to them what the car was doing on the track.

If you have dirt track memories to share, contact me @ bob@webprosolutions.com

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