We always like a good look into the past, especially if the knowledgable tones of Bud Lindemann are right there to explain what we’re seeing. The old Car and Track footage is great for seeing the musclecars of yore being wrung out on a track, but that wasn’t all the show did. Since NASCAR didn’t have the live coverage back in the early 1970s, races would be filmed and would usually be cut up into a kind of highlight reel that narrowed down hundreds of laps into a digestible serving. This worked for markets that didn’t get stock-car racing, which was still seen as a purely Southern thing. (Note: Lindemann’s use of the “rebel” and “Yankee” terms while explaining things early on.)

The race is the 1971 Motor State Michigan 400, and the cars…well, it’s safe to say that if you can’t find a car you like in this field, that you aren’t trying hard enough. Mercury, Ford, Dodge, Plymouth, and even Pontiac are represented in the field. This is the simpler time often mentioned when NASCAR is dredged up: longer pit stops, legacy drivers that were firmly rooted in good ol’ boy history, and plenty of fallout from the Ford vs. Chrysler cold war within NASCAR at the time.

Gotta say it: NASCAR was a thousand times better back then.