NASCAR Banned the 426 Hemi. Chrysler Walked Out of the Season Entirely.

Ford swept the top five at Daytona in 1963. Twelve months later a Ford mechanic stood on pit road holding a stopwatch he no longer needed, listening to a sound coming off turn four that nobody in the sport had heard before. Richard Petty led 184 of 200 laps and won by a lap and nine seconds. Chrysler took the top three and four of the top five that day, then won 26 of the season's 62 races. On October 19, 1964, NASCAR wrote the rules that shut the Hemi out, and Chrysler pulled everything, parking the defending champion for a year while Petty went drag racing in a Barracuda lettered with one word, Outlawed. We cover what the 1965 rule actually said, the 11,000 fans who did not come back to Daytona, LeeRoy Yarbrough running 181.818 mph in a car that could not be entered in anything, and Bill France handing over the prize check himself. Was Bill France right to ban it, or did he just do Ford's dirty work? Sixty years of argument, and the comments are open. #426Hemi #NASCARHistory #Mopar #RichardPetty #DetroitIron