Originally Posted by opnwhlmnd:
Two things happened in 1978 that changed the world of sprint car racing and the most popular form of it.
1. USAC had a devastating plane crash that took the lives of many top leaders and officials.
2. Ted Johnson started the World of Outlaws and the "Run Whaca Brung".
USAC and traditional, non-wing, whatever you want to call it, has never recovered from the plane crash.
The World of Outlaws kept growing and because of that winged sprint cars are by far the most popular form of sprint car racing. They just had a weekend that paid out over 2 million dollars for the four days and also broke an attendance record for Eldora Speedway.
Before 1978 we could call them sprint cars and winged sprint cars. Today they are sprint cars and non-wing sprints cars.
The outlaws also dealt a blow to real sprint car racing when they decided to go wing only. As the series was originally constructed, it was promoters choice. I’m not going to get into reasons why, but if they would’ve kept both options, both genres would have also grown with the series. Also not to nitpick, but the outlaws did not payout 2 million for the weekend, the first two nights were not sanctioned by WOO, which explains their arrogant obliviousness to the first two nights
Originally Posted by jdull99:
"Back in the day" weren't they called like B cars and maybe the "Indy-type" cars were A-cars or smthn? I know they (the Indy type cars) were called Big Cars. Possibly until there was a split of the Indy 500 type cars to the "half-mile" cars? I swear I read this in maybe the Bettenhausen book (it was like a history of racing); but I don't have the book anymore.
Something like that...Call them "Big Car Short Track cars"!
I was first exposed to dirt track racing in the 70s in Northern California. Sprint cars didn't have wings, supermodifieds did. Now, an sprint car could put on a wing and race with the supers (and many did).
