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22 February: Today in Racing

Editor22.02.2020

Today in history will be remembered for American speed king Barney Oldfield asking in 1917, "If deflecting planes will drive an airplane up and down, why won't a deflecting plane on a car going more than 100mph help drive it down to the ground and add weight for traction?” 

It would take more than  50 years for Mauro Forghieri to apply the airfoil to a Formula 1 Ferrari for the first time in 1968.

Malcolm Campbell was up to his usual antics as he drove his 2500 hp 37-Litre Rolls-Royce Schneider Trophy racing seaplane Rolls-Royce-powered Napier-Campbell to a new 272.46 mph One-Mile Speed record on Dayton Beach in 1931. 

Daytona was back in the news when a crowd of 41 000 witnessed the first 500 raced on the town’s new super speedway in 1959. It took until the following Wednesday for NASCAR boss Bill France Sr. to separate a Johnny Beauchamp and Lee Petty dead heat in Petty’s favour after one of the few NASCAR races ever to go the distance without caution periods.

By 1970, the Daytona 500 had attracted over 100 000 spectators to watch Pete Hamilton power his Plymouth Superbird to the win, while Joey Logano took the 2015 500 win on this day. Looking a bit further back in US race history, Charles Bigelow won the 1911 Oakland Trophy, while Pete DePaolo took victory in the 1929 Fisher Trophy.

More recently in NASCAR, Darrell Waltrip won the ’81 Richmond 400, Jeff Gordon the ’98 Goodwrench 400 and Matt Kenseth the 2009 Auto Club 500. In other racing, Stig Blomqvist and Arne Hertz won the 1976 Swedish in a Saab and Jeroen Bleekemolen won the 2009 South African A1 GP Sprint race for Holland, while Neel Jani took the Feature race for Switzerland.

Off the racetrack, Jaguar Formula 1 boss Bobby Rahal told driver Eddie Irvine off on his honesty about the struggling Ford-run team ahead of the new season. Ford and Jaguar would soon flee F1, selling the team to Red Bull, which would go on to deliver Sebastian Vettel to four F1 World Titles. The 22nd of February will also be remembered for being triple F1 world champion Niki Lauda’s birthday — the Super Rat was born this day in 1949. (Photo: Ford)

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