What does jr stand for ?

[Greg Myers]

[Patrick2005]

It might be a tribute to Richard Petty since his number was 43 and he did drive a Plymouth for so many years.

[george 53]

Junior. As in son.The 43 was always Richard Petty's Number. hence the Jr. But I don't know why Tony Nancy's rail is a Jr.

[george 53]

Pat, back in the day, When Richard left Nascar for a bit, he campaigned that 65 Barracuda. It broke once ,at a Drag meet, killing somebody. He quit Drag Raceing after that, an went back to Nascar.

[Patrick2005]

Actually now that you mention it I think I do remember hearing that Richard did drag race for a very short bit.

[Harry P.]

Junior. As in son.The 43 was always Richard Petty's Number. hence the Jr. But I don't know why Tony Nancy's rail is a Jr.

I think Tony Nancy was a "junior." Didn't Tony Nancy Sr. start the upholstery shop?

[a/gass]

Actually now that you mention it I think I do remember hearing that Richard did drag race for a very short bit.

yes due 2 nascar`s ban on hemi`s.Jr refers 2 the smaller car $ engin they were working on 404ci.this kellog crank engin would give him many victory`s in the 66-67 sesons of nascar including sears point in 67 were due 2 rules hemi`s could only have single 4 barrol and his extra small hemi`s gass millage put him 5 laps in front of 2nd place.67 was his best seson ever would have 2 look it up but i belive he won every race that year if the car didnt have mechanical problems mostly trans & brakes.

[a/gass]

Ok, you're really off base here. Nascar never raced at Sears Point until 1990, (Ricky Rudd won that race), so that's obviously wrong. Richard did win 27 of 48 starts in 1967, including 10 in a row, (two records never equaled to this day), but none of his wins were on road courses that year, (or a road course, since the single race at Riverside was the only road course race in 1967). Richard got his first road course victory at Bridgehampton NY in 1963, (last Nascar race ran there was in 1966), & his second at Riverside in 1969. He did dominate the season, but not as you described.

The rules for Hemi powered cars were as follows, (starting in 1966 in this case):

1966-

1.) The Hemi would be allowed on intermediate & full size cars on short tracks & road courses.

2.) The 426 Hemi would only be allowed on superspeedways in full size wheelbased cars (Fury & Polara).

3.) The Hemi would be allowed on superspeedways in intermediate cars (Belvedere, Coronet & Charger) only with 405 cubic inch maximum displacement.

1967-Nascar did finally allow the 426 version on the superspeedways in the intermediate wheelbase cars (GTX, Coronet, Charger) in 1967 but in turn allowed Ford to run dual 4 barrel carbs on the 427's.

The end result was not so favorable in the Chrysler camp with Ford winning the first 3 major races of the season (Riverside, Daytona & Atlanta). The Chrysler teams went to work & this resulted in utilizing the 9.36 pounds per cubic inch displacement rule. The Chrysler teams dusted off the A117 404 circle track "Mini Hemi" used in 1966 to shave 200 lbs. off their cars race weight.

Plymouths & Dodges did wind up winning a total of 36 races that year. As an aside, don't believe that Mopar, (or Ford for that matter), strictly adhered to that 9.36 lbs per CI rule with their destroked engines, (Ford claimed the same also, for the weight break, with a destroked 427 allegedly putting out 396 CI), as both manufacturer's teams routinely ran the bigger engine with the weight break. Cubic inch displacement was measured with what's called a P&G meter, & all the teams had ways of getting around that back then, resulting in a false reading in pre-race inspections. It fooled Nascar's inspectors & the teams ran the bigger engine with the lower weight.

"Jr" in the case of the Petty Barracuda merely refers to the fact that it wasn't his Nascar Belvedere, but was the smaller Barracuda, thus "Jr", & it was drag raced in 1965, during Nascar's ban on the Hemi. It has nothing to do with the 404 CI Hemi used in Nascar.

cool i was going off my memory of it.didnt relly rember what track he domanited that year but some were i have an old book that talkes about it.and a bunch of old books on the barracuda.plus i got distorted info years ago from bob (of bob`s drag chouets-R.J.S.safty equipment when i worked their)and Jim wagner when weed sit around B.S.en about peoples ideas.thankes 4 the more detaild nascar info. sorry my spelling sucks!

Edited April 24, 2011 by a/gass

[Chuck Most]

Going back to the Petty drag racing thing- NASCAR actually used to sanction drag racing for a breif period. If I remember, it ended sometime in the mid '60's.

[Patrick2005]

I'd like to hear more about the Petty car killing a young boy. I never heard that story.

[MikeMc]

I said to myself...wait wasn't that a class back then , so I googled NHRA Junior Stock....heres a bit, the link follows...

The term Junior Stock originated in the early '60s, when the NHRA took the fastest cars in Stock Eliminator--Super/Stock, AA/Stock, A/Stock Automatic, and so on--and packaged them in a separate category it called Top Stock Eliminator. As the muscle car era arose, this category was seen as a bankable spectator attraction. Meanwhile, everything from B/Stock down went into a separate eliminator, to run while everyone headed to the concession stands. At various times, the NHRA called this lower-classed eliminator Junior Stock or simply Stock Eliminator, but the Junior Stock label just sort of stuck, and Junior Stock racers wore it as a badge of honor, especially the racers from the NHRA's Division 1 in the Northeast, the hotbed of Junior Stock racing in the '60s.

Jere Stahl and Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins of Pennsylvania were the technical gurus of this group, creating many of the innovations that went into the trickest cars of the era. At one point, Stahl offered his unique long-primary, long-collector headers in more than 40 varieties for '55 to '57 Chevys alone, each one "totally tuned" (his slogan) to a specific combination. (Tubular headers were one of the few allowable engine modifications.) The Grump built engines and tune-ups for dozens of racers in Division 1 and elsewhere, including the legendary Monster Mash I and II, a pair of '55 Chevrolets campaigned by Bill Spanakos. Other Northeast standouts included the Wheatley Bros., George Cureton, and the Jesel Bros., but there were many more.

http://www.hotrod.com/whereitbegan/hrdp_0907_junior_stock_drag_racing/index.html

[Eric Stone]

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=419326

http://www.myrideisme.com/Blog/king-richard-petty-a-drag-racer/

[MikeMc]

I'd like to hear more about the Petty car killing a young boy. I never heard that story.

click on the link

[Greg Myers]

I think there is a lot of speculation going on here.Jr. Stock ?

[Greg Myers]

Edited April 25, 2011 by Greg Myers

[AzTom]

Not sure about the Petty car but I found this on the Tony Nancy car.

"Finished in blazing orange, the absolutely immaculate, center-steered ’29 Model A roadster was the first of what would be a long line of Nancy’s famed 22 Jr. racing cars. The “22 Jr.†racing number was partly derived from the fact that Nancy favored the number “2â€. Also, since he was competing with a smaller-displacement engine against competitors with much larger engines, he added the “Jr.†suffix."

Tom