Then vs Now - What Happened?

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Dan Bennett

There are a couple of excellent discussions going on here during the offseason, and reading them has brought a question to mind.

My first Indy was in 1966 and it was absolute paradise. Yes, I wanted to see the Pros, but more than anything I wanted to see the cars that were legends as baddest of the bad. These were the guys who were the best in the world at racing cars like I (and my friends) raced.

I'm talking about racers like Bill Spanakos (Monster Mash), Dick Moroso, George Cureton, Jess Tyree, Jere Stahl, Bill Jenkins, Ronnie Sox, Dick Landy, Dyno Don, etc.

Just a few years later I was looking for John Lingenfelter, John Dianna, Ed Hamburger, Mark Coletti, Barry Poole, Bo Laws, Ray Allen, Dave Boertman, Truman Fields, etc.

What's changed? Is it just that I was a serious gear head and took the time to recognize the really heavy hitters? Or that back then things were truly heads up and the fastest was easy to find?

Was it because that there were a bunch of monthly magazines featuring these cars? Was it because there weren't so many national events so seeing any of these guys from across the country was really special?

I honestly don't know and that's why I'm interested in everyone's opinion. I just know that there was a time when class cars truly DID have crowds around them in the pits and the stands didn't empty when they ran.

Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong, but it doesn't seem like the really excellent racers are household names for race fans any longer.

The difference is that in the early days, Sportsman racers had a lot more sponsorhips and factory support. It was the days of the "Factory Wars" and "Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday". They got a lot of ink ion adevrtisements and magazines. Today, very few get that type of ink.

In addition, Pro Stock was still a developing from the Super Stock class and was not a big professional class as today. The big Pro's in the early days were T/F and later F/C, which happened to mature also from Super Stock, to AF/X and finally F/C.