In this episode of 'Shift,' Richard Petty relives the first race at Talladega Superspeedway in 1969 and the challenges the brand new track posed to NASCAR, teams and drivers.
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00:0069 in Talladega, y'all go to Talladega the first time, the tires can't keep up with the
00:14speed is basically what happened.
00:17I think probably went down there like Tuesday or Wednesday, there's a new track and I want
00:24everybody to get used to it.
00:26The Alabama International Motor Speedway is the world's fastest and safest closed course
00:31racetrack.
00:32This allows high speed controlled testing sessions around the two and two thirds mile
00:36tri-oval.
00:37At that time we had treaded tires, they had a lot of rubber on them.
00:42I mean we was averaging 199 almost 200 mile an hour for an average speed.
00:50They finally figured out that by having the treaded tire plus having so much rubber, it
00:56as the momentum went, the rubber would just go away.
01:00They couldn't keep up with the tire.
01:02Four or five laps and just throw them clean off.
01:09All the drivers and stuff got together and said, we're not going to do this.
01:13I mean we risk our lives enough, but when we know we got a problem, then we're not going
01:18to do it.
01:19Goodyear was stubborn enough, they were going to try to stay.
01:22They kept changing their compound and stuff.
01:25Every morning we'd have a new set of tires and they'd try them.
01:29You know, looking back on the thing, it was a bad week from one standpoint, but it made
01:37so much news that everybody in the country knew about Talladega.
01:45Same thing with Daytona, the first race, Bill France probably knew my dad had won the race,
01:50but he put it off three days.
01:53Got all that free publicity, all of a sudden everybody knows Daytona.
01:58Talladega wound up being the same thing.
02:01That tire problem happened, NASCAR, the race track, got all that publicity for a couple
02:07of weeks and even more after that.
02:11That was a big, big deal.
02:12It went all over the country, Talladega, Alabama.
02:22It was a big deal.