Dick Brooks 1973 Talladega 500 winner

[MarkJ]

His only cup win. Turns out it had an illegel intake manifold that allowed it to have more power than the other cars. One of his owners who were brothers was tied to Eastern Airlines or something like that and came up with a way to modify the intake manifold to help make up for the restrictor plate hampering horsepower. the Mickey Mouse on the hood is because Bill France said they were a Mickey Mouse team and that was a way to address that. The huge crash at the beginning of the race also helped his chances of winning.

[Volzfan59]

Great build Mark, I've never seen this car as a model car and I've never heard the Mickey Mouse story. Well done 👍

[TarheelRick]

Surprised 'Big Bill' allowed the car to run with Mickey on the hood, maybe he didn't catch the irony. Anyway, this is another beautiful build from the table of the NASCAR master builder. That chassis would certainly be noticeable if he got upside down. Keep showing us these builds Mark.

[jh63fan]

Hey Mark, what kit did you use. I haven't built the new Salvino JR Roadrunner, but yours kinda looks like the old MPC in some details. Whichever you used, it sure turned out nice. Do you know what the CE on the quarter panel stood for?

[MarkJ]

Hey Mark, what kit did you use. I haven't built the new Salvino JR Roadrunner, but yours kinda looks like the old MPC in some details. Whichever you used, it sure turned out nice. Do you know what the CE on the quarter panel stood for?

JH, the kit was a model I built back in the seventy's from the old MPC kit from back then. I made it into a Richard Petty Roadrunner. That must have been what it was kitted for. I found it in an old paper bag with some other models I built back then, I dissasembled it which was easy cause it kind of fell apart from age. I guess the glue gives up over time. I just put it back together with some mods under the hood and added some exhaust and painted it with Tamiya rattle can black. I had to make my own decals which were ink jet printed on Testors white decal paper. I had to cut them out exactly on their edge after putting a black border around them.  I can now print white underlay decals with a  laser printer and ghost white toner but I didn't have it back then when I built this model. Thanks for the kind words about the build.

[MarkJ]

Thanks, Steve and Rick. I always appreciate the positive comments

[Rattlecan Dan]

Nice looking build, and side story about the Mickey Mouse. Nice reclamation of the old kit. Still looks nice.

[MarkJ]

Thanks, Donato. JH the CE was the logo the team came up with. I knew what it stood for when I built the model but can't remember now. I think the wip was lost the first time Randy's site shut down, so I can't go back and look. I'll see if I can find out.

[MarkJ]

Found out some more stuff about the CE logo on the quarter panel. Jimmy and Peter Crawford owned the team and called themselves Crawford enterprises. Jimmy actually wanted to drive the car at Talladega but Nascar didn't think he had enough experience to drive it so the Friday before the race they hired Dick Brooks to drive the car in the 500. I guess that's why Brooks name didn't get on the roof of the car. They ran out of time. Another fun fact, this was the last win by a Plymouth in Nascar cup competition.

[MarkJ]

Here are some pictures of the real car.

[catpack68]

Another very nice model from you Mark!👍 Is this the Salvinos Road Runner kit?

[MarkJ]

Another very nice model from you Mark!👍 Is this the Salvinos Road Runner kit?

Cat, no. It is the very old MPC Richard Petty kit that I actually first built in 1973 or whenever it hit the model shops back then. I built it OOB because back then it was about all you could do. I found it in an old paper grocery bag with some other models I had built back then. It had fallen apart, and the decals had peeled and faded badly. I cleaned it up and actually painted it this time to make this build. I had to make my own decals for this one. I had a wip but it was either lost at Randys or Scale Auto. I can't remember where I posted it.

[racecar dave]

Real nice rebuild. Good to see cars like this.

[MarkJ]

I found some wip pictures for this.

[Razorback 46]

Nice work!! Haven't seen this one built before. I'd wondered about the Mickey Mouse story and I love that Big Bill didn't ALWAYS get the upper hand.