Bobby Johns flips on lap 85 of the 1960 Southern 500 after making contact with Roy Tyner. Johns' car crashes into the backstretch wall causing pieces of debris to fly into the pit area killing crew-chief Paul McDuffie, mechanic Charles Sweatlund, and Nascar inspector Joe Taylor. Three other Atlanta mechanics, John Blaylock, Ralph Byers, and R.M. Vermillion, Jr., were seriously injured in the crash.
1960 Bobby Johns Fatal Pit Crash @ Darlington
59 comments
Rip to all of these guys. This is sad 🙁
Rest in peace Paul McDuffie, Charles Sweatlund, and Joe Taylor. You will not be forgotten.
@VintageMotorsportCrashes r/youngpeopleyoutube
@VintageMotorsportCrashes they can’t help it it’s the way they’ve been wired
@VintageMotorsportCrashes rrright
As a family member to Paul McDuffie, the grief never ends.
He was a brilliant mechanic 40 years ahead of his time.
Rip to these guys
And this is why the pit lane is separated from the track
Worldwide … so.many.deaths. Let’s not talk about 1955 Le Mans.
Now.
You gotta keep em separated
Congratulations. While these men were inventing the sport and figuring out the safety before the money arrived. You’ve spotted the fact you’ve the benefit of hindsight.
R.I.P. to Bobby Johns crew. Man, older NASCAR was essentially a guarantee that someone would die in a year.
And now it’s been almost 20 years since someone died. Thank God for the valuable, life-saving equipment required today.
That’s the way _all_ racing was. It was taken as given that racing was dangerous, and guys were going to die.
the Isle of Mann TT race has averages 2.4 fatalities per year since it’s origin. 258 total.
Rip to Paul McDuffie, Charles Sweatlund, and Joe Taylor.
@New Guy the crew members killed in this crash.
Howard Cosell voice over – legend.
This was probably one of just two times I know that Howard Cosell ever narrated or reported on auto racing.
I think in the early 1970s, Cosell was sent to Monaco by ABC to serve as a pit reporter for the Formula 1 Grand Prix there (taped for broadcast the next weekend on “Wide World Of Sports”) because the man who regularly reported from the pits on ABC motorsports telecasts, Chris Economaki, was tied up in Indianapolis reporting from the pits at the Indy 500 time trials (back then, the Monaco Grand Prix was held a week before the Indy 500).
@altfactor He blew Del Unser behind pit row at Indy once
@T Rlol shut up.
@T R True. Too much fellatio with sports stars can ruin a man’s career. I should know…
@T R Economaki or Cosell? And who is Dal Unser?
RIP- Safety has improved so much! Howard Cosell calling the race.
Back when the race cars looked like the cars people had in their garages. Good times!
@ksm49 Watch your mouth son.
Yes! I first started attending the local races as a kid in the late ’60’s and have been following NASCAR since 1970, and back then you could tell a GM from a Ford from a Mopar. Now I can’t tell which model is which either in NASCAR or the short tracks.
And don’t get me started on dirt late models. Those things look terrible.
That’s because they were, NASCAR race teams would buy cars car that anyone could and turned them into race cars. They would beef up the suspension, add a roll cage etc…Thus the term stock car. For the past 40 years or so they’re built from the gound up.
I love how a polo shirt was the only “racing suit” needed
Don’t forget to add in the fake tire squealing and metallic crashing sounds.
Well, that and a pack of Pall Malls rolled up in yer sleeve
Nobody drinking mountain dews thats unheard of
I could have entered the race with my current VW GLI sedan and had a good chance of winning and had a safer car.
@Bée ‘Emm and a six pack of beer to boot.
Between Howard Cosell and the dramatic music, this feels like an episode from television back in the late 60’s
I guess you didn’t read the year this took place in the title, eh?
Cosell was annoying then and he’s still annoying after he’s dead
@Michael McKenzie how so if he’s dead. lol
@Judy Davenport You’re really verbatim, huh? I think he meant HEARING his voice even now (after he’s deceased). I felt the need to explain this. As ridiculous as it seems.
Yes sir Howard Cosell. Look how packed the stands are. I was born that year LOL, at around 9 yrs old, I would even sit by myself watching it on a small black and white TV. Mesmerized and plain car crazy. Still am.
Yep, polyester and nylon polo shirts. Not recommended in a fire. I worked pit crews in the 60’s and 70’s and we all wore matching nylon windbreakers, usually with a bunch of burn holes from welding and grinding sparks, hot exhaust or gas fires but we thought we looked cool. Not smart, but cool.
An older co worker once told me that sometimes cool is the same as not so hot…never could figure what the old fool meant till just now…thanks.
Always love the racing suits of the 60’s! As demonstrated here, they held the same amount of respect for safety as the rest of the sport haha
Goin’ racin’ today. Gonna wear my lucky polo shirt.
Ask Fireball Roberts how well those fare in a wreck
Race team lookin like a bunch of painters jusmped out of a van at the gas station and decided to go racing instead.
Not a good video to watch before u race lol
@Steve Steve Even the hippies?
Those men had balls like steel. No fucks given.
Safety gear back then was an open helmet and a Hawaiian shirt.
@Mickey Smiths sometimes in life the risk is the whole reason why you do it…..
I noticed no fire suit and an open face helmet.
@Greatmate C’Mon you’re talking about NASCAR, you know that racing series that started in the south by a bunch of bootleggers who raced on the streets and ran from the police. I highly doubt safety was a priority back then, hell judging by all the fatal accidents Nascar didn’t take safety nearly as serious till they lost what was the face of the sport at Daytona back in 2001. Nascar has never been the same for better or worse.
Real Men and real cars,today its transgender men wearing bubble wrap and all the cars are the same,just different stickers on a fake body!
No idea why they did not have cheaper versions of flight suits even by then.
Actual “stock cars”. Check the guy in the 58 Chevy number 74 working the column shifter for the three speed!
This is when my Dad raced! A 1957 Bel Air and a 1963 Studebaker Avanti(# 32), AND a top fuel fuel front engine dragster in NHRA. The Philips 66 cars, as I recall, AND the ONLY working, full time, law enforcement professional in the sport. He was NOT popular! 🙂 He retired when I started primary school in ’65, I WAS DEVASTATED!! And that was after he retired from USMC aviation(Vought F-8, USS Enterprise). He was also one of the two local leo’s involved in foiling the Barbara Mackel kidnapping case in metro Atlanta in ’68. We lived in Doraville, at the time.
Those squealing tires and crash sound effects get me every time.