Richard Petty's "Special" Textured Roof - 1968 Daytona 500
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- čas přidán 14. 11. 2023
- 1968 Daytona 500: Richard Petty's famous vinyl roof was never vinyl at all! But what it did was try to manipulate air in a way that no other car had done before or since. Was it genius? Or was it just a cover for a not-so-legal modification?
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#NASCAR - Sport
as a european used to F1, WRC and WEC, the mix of low and high tech in Nascar is weird and fascinating
It's that strange mix of low tech drivetrains and high tech everywhere else that made it so cool. In the quest to make the best of solid axles, tube chassis, and carburetors, NASCAR teams built cars in stunningly weird and clever ways. On top of that, American auto manufacturers not too infrequently ended up chasing world-class aero efficiency in the battle to dominate on the big tracks back when stock cars still had to _look_ like their street counterparts.
Anachronistic to its very core, but in a sport where sustained high speeds are such an integral part of the game? NASCAR actually used to be at the very forefront of aerodynamics in motorsports. The most unhinged combo, and it often had EPIC results.
Well stated
I dig this old NASCAR tech a little bit, by the 90s though it was boring.
As Robert Duval says in Days of Thunder, Nothing stock about a stock car.
Everything in nascar is about using high tech engineering to gain an advantage while intentionally making it look like you're incompetent, so the officials assume it can't be a benefit.
I remember reading about the dimpled roof in a book about Daytona cheaters. It said The roof was misdirection from all the illegal things they did to the rest of the car.
That is what Richard said in a interview.
Bingo.
I think it was Petty who also showed up with a roof with dimples like a golf ball. I have seen pictures of it but now can't find them. The question was, would it really work or was it a distraction to hide some other cheating. Let the inspectors wonder about the roof and not look at the rest of the car so close
Smokey Yunick was the master rule interpreter....although the Petty's may have had a couple tricks up their sleeve
Yup. Stock Car Racing magazine took a side by side picture of Petty's Roadrunner and Darel Dieringer's Roadrunner and they didn't even look close to the same car.
I remember that Mythbusters episode and Jamie said something like "can't wait to see all the NASCARs do this"
That's the first thing I thought of when I saw this
Mythbusters was pure garbage.
@@JeffSherlockman I can’t believe I missed the better mythbusters you must be talking about
What time did that show come on
NASCAR rules for all touring series now ban textured paints (and textured vinyl wraps). The rule is typically worded in part as “[t]he type of paint used, whether it be flat, satin or high gloss finish, must provide a smooth surface. The paint or vinyl must not be textured.”
Killjoys...
I specifically have seen a honeycomb texture in the wrap/on the car when seeing cars in person. I've always wanted some explanation of it
@@alexcoxe4303 the Xfinity Series bodies have a honeycomb pattern molded into certain areas. The intent was to keep teams from trying to manipulate the bodies in those areas. NCTS series all have hand fabricated bodies still and do not have that, and the new NCS bodies do not have anything specifically molded into the exterior surface to discourage manipulation (but they do have things on the under side).
I was at the Brickyard 400 in the mid '90s and got a close up look at Jeff Gordon's car, and was amazed at the amount of "Orange Peel" in the paint. He was sponsored by DuPont at the time and one would assume they would want a glass like finish to show off their paint products. I was at one time an auto body tech and have sprayed a lot of DuPont, and I know that you would have to try to get such a dimpled finish. My first thought was that this gave an aerodynamic advantage and I thought it was a pretty smart move on Evernham's part.
This tactic could have in part led to that NASCAR rule about textured finishes.
Teams now are using a mixture of matte and gloss finish on their wraps, to direct airflow. Shit is nutty.
I saw this race live over a black and white closed circuit TV feed in Greenville, SC. I believe there was live commentary. We were all under the belief that Petty’s car had a vinyl roof, a belief I held until watching this video. My dad was a Mercury dealer and this was the beginning of the short span 68-69 when Mercury Cyclones held some dominance in NASCAR. Naturally, being in that camp with Cale Yarborough and the Wood Brothers, we were LOAO at Petty’s dilemma that day thinking who would be so dumb to run a vinyl roof. Interesting video in busting the myth. Still glad the Mercury won. RIP Plymouth and Mercury.
My dad sold Mercuries at a dealer in Upstate NY back then. Cale became my favorite driver thanks to all of the Mercury stuff dad brought home from work!
@@SpintripsQuick hey there from Upstate NY, where my dad worked for Buick! Couldn’t resist. Small world.
Sorry you were so poor it was black n white TV and closed circuit
Roger Penske said the vinyl roof on their 1969 Trans Am Camaro was for an aerodynamic reason ,comparing it to a golf ball , but it's said that the real reason was to stiffen up the acid dipped roof . Having seen how imaginative the Penske team had been in gaining any advantage they could ,the vinyl roof was probably to benefit them for both reasons.
Am I looking at 14" front and 15" rear wheels?
@@xmo552 Possibly, that would be one way of getting the front end down low ,I wonder if they also wound down the torsion bars very low , but used extra heavy duty stiff ones?. The AAR Cuda's had lower sidewall tires on the front, compared to the rear , maybe Petty's car had smaller front wheels, and lower profile tires??
rumor has it the scrutineers lent on the roof after signing off an it buckled
@@PUNCHARD800ftlb I think that was Sam Posey's Challenger.
@@barrycuda3769 Nope, it was the camaro that Yunick built, and acid dipped. They threw a clip board on it and it buckled.
The '87 America's Cup yacht race, Dennis Conner's boat Stars and Stripes was covered in a shark skin like film that was said to reduce drag, and he won going away.
TIL Stars and Stripes won twice? I always thought they only won with the catamaran. 1992 was the first America's Cup I was old enough to pay attention to.
@@stevenkilsdonk2046 New AC75s in the water. Gonna be fun.
As Richard Petty said recently, "When you cheated, you had to cheat neat. Maurice was very good at that because otherwise you would not even qualify half the time."
Unlike the Michigan football team,,,,,,,,,Lousy cheaters.
Richard hopping on top of his car fixing it his damn self!! That’s why he’s the king 😂💯
...in cowboy boots too! 😁👑
Really? That was it..?
Hey, if there isn't anything in the rules then it's not cheating.. it's innovation 😂
Damn straight
100%
Could it be a distraction?
@@Ghost-vf2li Actually, the turbulence theory is correct. Golf balls without the dimples do not travel as far. Richard Petty was known for thinking out of the box. Smokey Yunick was also a legend in his own time for thinking out of the box. For example: the rules did not dictate the size of the filler tube was, going to the fuel tank. So he moved the fill location as far forward from the tank as possible and then used a 4" inch tube, thus giving him three extra gallons of fuel.
He also tried mounting the alternator on the bumper equipped with a propeller. Thus wind powered and not drag on the engine. The concept worked but it was disqualified immediately before ever being used in a race. (And after, the refs had to go back and rewrite the rule book...lol)
It's only cheating if you get caught!
When Petty hammered on the roof, it looked like a waterbed.
I bought a used car in the 70s that had a textured painted roof to mimic vinyl (and hide body work)..
The white and blue petty car from july is insane and I love it
I worked with a guy who was at that race. I remember talking with him about it around the mid to late 70's and he said the car whistled but after the roof damage it whistled even louder. Everybody cheated somehow back then and you can't help but wonder about all the other stuff going on. The Pettys cheated just like everyone else. Boy, those cars sure had a rake on them. Personally, I think the black roof was more visually appealing and the white car even more so.
Hell, they all still cheat!
The whistling on WW2 planes is the air going in and out of cooling scoops.. I wonder if the top had vents in it for 'cooling' ( reducing air buildup)
and the black paint covered the vents.
Rules tell you what NOT to do
Very interesting. Surprised I haven’t heard more about this before now.
Thought exactly the same way
I think the Team got the idea for the Textured Roof from Lee Petty myself, Lee was an avid golfer in addition to being a former NASCAR champion and would've understood the role aerodynamics played in both these sports.
Years ago I talked to a guy who ported heads for several different types of race teams and vehicles. He was telling me how they were studying how some sharks go thru the water faster than others and the study turned to the surface texture of their skin. They were trying different surface treatments & textures in the ports & runners to see how it affected air-flow & velocity.
Hold er I think did it on ls cathedral ports it's crazy to think it works I wouldn't pay a leg for it. But I'll try it myself a little around the lips to act like an intake
@@alexbesong5731well after sharp turns the flow will seperat reducing the crossection of the tube so it will work but how good depends on how sharp the turn is
Ford used the texture paint on their 'Dentside' pickup trucks in the early to mid 1970s. Its intent was to mimic a vinyl roof covering, and it worked. It was a not-often-seen option even when those trucks were new.
Just imagine how fast those dentsides would lap Daytona :)
It's stories like this, teams flirting the line between the intent of regulations and the actual wording of them. It's why stories like this or the Brabham Fan Car from F1 makes me fascinated by the technical aspect of motorsport :)
Cale Yarborough my favorite driver of that era....Won Riverside and many other races in the early 70s.
Petty switched to Ford in 69…… but in 70 Plymouth had the Superbird and Petty was back and everything was right in the world again 😂
I was there for that race and I remember when the roof detached. At the time we all thought it was a vinyl roof that came loose at the front.
Boundary layer energizers are used on aircraft wing leading edges to create this effect, as a bonus, it helps break up ice formation (as well as being heated with bleed air or electrically).
After watching a documentary on "Golf Balls", specifically the dimpling on the cover of them, I instantly thought of a Cup car at Dega, sponsored by Titlist, with the roof and hood painted and dimpled like a golf ball. I would really like to see if it would make a difference. Certainly more effective than truck bed paint.
I am reminded of Smokey Yunick and “Any loophole is big enough to drive a car through.”
The 427 never made 600 horses, more like 550, but the fastback roof was a big advantage
In '69 the Boss 429 finally made about 620 to 650hp
Love seeing these old races with King Petty! In my opinion the best race car driver ever.
I used to call him " King Richard " .
That's quite the take when it's likely he wasn't even the best American stock car oval racing driver of his era. I take Pearson over him any day, and that's without considering the likes of Gurney or Clark. As for all time, there's no way you can convince me that Petty was better than Earnhardt, Gordon, Stewart, or Kyle Busch. And once you start to include international open wheel drivers like Fangio, Ascari, the aforementioned Clark, Jackie Stewart, and the modern F1 greats Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, and Verstappen, Richard Petty just does not belong in the conversation anymore.
@@doylerudolph7965 King of showmanship. Maybe?
@doylerudolph7965 good answer!! Petty always had top notch cars and equipment to drive
Pearson was a better driver, Cale, Leeroy Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Isaac or Glotzbach were all as good as Petty was, but most never had the material for a long time to be as competitive like petty over the whole time
Jimmy Clark is laughing at you from Heaven.
I had a step father that was Black flagged at Daytona during qualifications. (1968) 167.86 mph lap speed, and 210 in the back stretch. They didn't believe he was running a 289, but a 427SJC instead.
Pulled and teched the little motor and sho' nuff it was legal. 504hp @ 9000 rpm. Won mech of year.
Ted Haywood drove his 67 Shelby GT350 with that little motor all season. He was a Smokey alumni. Smokey knew his stuff. Ted knew turbines from the USMC. He was a sharp man and I miss him.
very cool story!
@@loubentodias Thank you. That wasn't all of the story. But it was the the relevant part.
Wow that was a fast car, strong motor !
Makes me think of Cole Pearn and the Furniture Row #78 being painted flat black at most tracks, but would be glossy for plate races.
I remember seeing those cars and thought, 'how dorky' to have granny's vinyl roof on a race car
Never thought about the aircraft texture paint.
Look at the way the roof moves when Richard is beating on it! 😂 I think acid dipping is the answer!
Yeah anyone that has ever been around one of those cars knows how ridiculously thick the metal is on them and that looked like a damn pop can
Every time I think you guys can't make a video about something I dont know, you do.
Best explanation of golf boll dimples I’ve heard.
Do something on Smokey Yunick who once bragged " half the rules in NASCAR are because of me " And acid dipping the body panels was common for a while, just thick enough to hold it's shape in the wind blast.
I was there in the Petersen suite with the new CEO of Pennzoil. Purolator had just recently been acquired by Pennzoil. On the Corp plane back to Houston there was talk of possibility a joint sponsorship.
Even if it did or didn't work it made the paint job look better.
Great video, some awesome looking cars back then.
I watched this race on closed circuit TV ( in a theater. ). If the 43 was cheating it sure backfired! This race introduced the world to Duct tape 😊
Hey Donald R , the importance of the roof was in a sport where noted rules benders like Smokie Yunik and Junior Johnson admitted how they bent the rules , after they retired from the sport "King " Richard's black 🖤 roof was a very blatant bending of the rules which in later years led to the rules in place today about what material😮 can be used in the body wraps used on modern day stock cars 😊😅😮😢😂❤😂😊❤😊❤😊and with all that said I'm going to back out of here and let y'all watch this sort of historical video about what has happened over the 70 years or so and let y'all figure out how to answer any questions you might have at various points in the video 😊😅😮😢😂❤😂😊❤😊❤😊❤😊❤
@@jeffyoder8105 Like I said I watched it live in 1968.
Yes, and I recall when it was later referred to as "200 mph tape" -- you're right it sold a LOT of tape...
The way the roof bent when he was trying to make holes in it with the scratch awl sure made it look pretty thin
I remember something from long ago, maybe around the late 60s, that demonstrated that smooth surfaces have lower drag up to about 150mph, then textured surface are better. However, we all know how to make a smooth surface, getting the texture right is a different story.
Great to see footage of the 1968 #43 Plymouth, thanks!
First time I heard about those roofs. My 68 satellite sport had a black vinyl roof.
The king 👑 of NASCAR!
Can you make a video about USAC stock car. That series very confused me.
Wow! I just learned something about sales. Brilliant!
Very interesting! Thanks for making this video
This video reminds me of my old racing buddy Mayhew. REST IN PEACE OLD MAN!
n 74 i had a 67 ex state patrol car that had the same kind of spray on top after it was retired. the spray on roof looked pretty good even up close.
love your stuff man
Fellow fans, don't forget to rewatch the 1992 Hooters 500 raceday stream.
what an increadable time to have been involved in motor sport. The level of inovation at that time was amazing. With mavericks like Tom Petty leading the way.
>tom
Yeah Tom Petty learned to fly but he ain't got wings, he went so fast that he was Free Fallen
@@BILLY-px3hw "you never slow down, you never grow old"
Ultimately he was trying to divert air before it was going to hit the occupant blister. Looking at the wing shape, I can see why some favored the mid-engine exotic design along with aerodynamics if you looked at the wing backwards. To bad they didn't know about composite materials back then, as we know today. They could have cut more fat off that car without Jeopardizing safety and structural integrity.
In 1969 Roger Penske built a Camaro for the Trans-Am series with a vinyl roof. Was he following Petty's lead?
Well known they had acid dipped the body for weight,, then added a vinyl roof too hide it.
All textured surfaces aside, Car Craft did an article on Richard's 68. It said there was no mention of the sudo aero panels under the rear of his car. Wish they had gone into more detail about that.
It's not mentioned a lot but Dale Armstrong put what he called "vortex generators" on the roof of Kenny Bernstein's Budweiser King Funny Car in 1984 or 1985, and it was for the same reasons mentioned here (aerodynamics). FWIW.
If stock cars still looked something like this, hell, even I would watch it (British Dude)
My dad's factory ordered 68 sport fury had this applied instead of the vinyl!!! It lasted well into the 80's
The whistle is due to laminar turbulent boundary layer transition noise, a phenomenon occurring on modern road car mirrors. The onset creates a tonal noise.
There was a time when a lot of research went into the scales on a fish or the layers that feathers make at their tips.
The acid-dipped Penske cars of the Trams Am era used leather tops to hide their secret.
Vinyl Roof
There is a Guardian Angel for everyone you Know!!! King Richard has had a GOOD ONE through the years !!!!
I heard a different story. Guy claiming to have been with pettys at time claim The hold car had been acid dip to cut weight. The roof came out ruff so they use the texture paint to cover it up. While everyone was looking at texture paint they missed other things.
When tiger Tom piston saw this tiger sprayed a whole car. After that I can't remember the story. It was of course for airo effects ie: just like a golf ball, I was the areo designer for DW's wonda and Bertha, the gray ghost barker #28, Freddie lorenzen, and my favorite Robbie Morroso, plus 12's more. Tiger had the right idea but lacked the HP to get it up to speed
I remember reading about the old coast down aero tunnels, and one of the main things they were testing was textured decals.
Didnt take long for NASCAR to make that illegal, and mandate smooth decals. But even in F1 RedBull has run with matte surface paint, and teams have used textured decals, and textured carbon fiber weaves. Dimples and Bulges have also been used to great effect in LeMans, with a couple cars sporting a "bubbled" gurney flap at the trailing edge of the body to reduce the drag wake.
It's INSANE that those boxy old cars could do 189mph !
Chrysler 426 Hemi, Ford Boss 429, and Chevrolet 427 Porcupine engines produced the necessary horsepower.
Yup. It’s all about the horsies.
aerodynamics of a brick with a smaller brick on top and 600hp 😅
That was the average speed on that lap. They were hitting 200mph or more on the straights.
amazing.
Textured top would spoil lift, smooth belly pan would increase downforce, like a aircraft wing upside down.
Legend!
Teams making OSS-optimized wraps: **looks around nervously**
I love that "Plymouth" "By Petty" on the back. It could be argued that it was true though.
At first i figured the sun would heat the black roof and create a thin layer of hot air that reduced drag.
.
Most people think their boat runs its fastest on glass water...but it doesn't it only runs about 85% of its fastest speed. It runs its fastest speed on smooth water with just a lil bit of chop...
No, the Ford engines didn't have a 50 hp advantage over the Hemi. No way.
yeah i'm sure he completely made that up
The hemis probably were restricted by the rules. I think at that point they were only allowed a single carb while the fords were allowed dual carbs
@@shelbydupree6157race Hemis were single carb, street Hemis had dual quads.
The first, and cheapest, thing you do to win a championship is to read the regulations then think up ways to get round them.
The floor of the rb19 has vortex generators which allows them to run a more aggressive diffuser
Weren't Cup teams using an unusual paint on the side skirts of their cars a few years ago?
rake setup. rough black paint for for aerodynamic purposes. reminds me of the Red Bull RB6.
dont know if it works the same but I sanded the rear 4 feet of my bass boat with 80gr and picked up almost 10mph, same principal
There is definitely something to that theory, as that was a reason that Red Bull gave to why they started using a matte finish on their F1 cars, funny to think a NASCAR team was near on 50 years ahead on what it supposed as the most developed racing car series in the world.
Don't think these men were simple just because they grew up in a simple era
What a story!
A lot of focus on the texture but did you see how light it was when hit with a tool? My guess is mis-direction hidden in plain sight. A super light roof to help reduce the COG for better handling
3:49 “It’s why dimpled golf balls travel as far as smooth golf balls”.
Smooth golf balls travel even less than what they do already? Oh man, that means if I hit a smooth golf ball it would hardly move 😢
Nothing compares to the golden era of NASCAR. And mainly "wing cars"! 🏁
That's why golf balls are dimpled. Mythbusters did it to a car to see if it work the same way.
The dimples create a small vortex creating a barrier from the wind. Just like leaving your pickup truck tailgate UP.
🏁Great vid!!!!! 🏁 👍 43
From everything I've heard, its definitely a symptom of acid dipping the chassis. That was the prime era for that trick and would perfectly account for the 6mph top speed increase over the next Chrysler IMHO. I'm not a NASCAR driver, only a fan, so who knows what really happened...
As I recall, Stars and stripes, the 1987 America's Cup winner, use a similar plastic skin.
I believe that they were experimenting with what's called "laminar flow", an aerodynamic term.
Love that dinoco blue
Nice boots!
I don’t know if it’s been posted already about textured paint in later years. It was still a thing as late as the 90’s and early 2000’s. It wasn’t so obvious though. The painters were instructed to make the clear coat do what is called “Orange Peal” and that would be their dimpling effect. If this still exists today, I’m sure it does in some capacity.
Now you should do a video on the trick belly pan this car had. 😉
The sponsor had him try the new roof. The saying was, Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday. Well, after a bit the roof started peeling. My '69 Road Runner, his was the '68 GTX version, Had one. It got scraped of and re painted. Well, for Petty,(and Plymouth),it started peeling back and slowed the car down. Neither Petty or anyone else tried that again and the following year they re badged the GTX as a Road Runner. It sucks to be old but the cars and music made it worth being there. Road Runner gone in '95, should have got the divorce, currently a 440,(502 CID, 409HP at crank in a 1967 Charger. A lot of stuff breaks over time. Just haven't seen that with my right foot.
Did Petty only run with that odd-looking tail-high stance at Daytona? It seems like that could have the opposite effect of enlarging the low pressure zone in the rear but apparently not.
Doesn't Petty's Plymouth still exist, somewhere, to get measurements of the roof (thickness)?
Never seen a (mostly) correct explanation of a golf ball until here. Congrats! But I suspect the air flowing over the roof was already turbulated, making the texture irrelevant.
Back when cars were actually different and manufacturer rivalries made sense...
What's with the extreme rake though? Would think it would handle fuct up like that.
Great content 👌 all your videos are awesome honestly
Cool