Robert,
This has been many years ago but maybe I can shed a little light on what you are talking about. As I remember, there were times that Smokey was seriously racing and other times he was doing R&D work. The scenario that you are referring too happened more than once and there were times when he would show up at the track with no intention of actually racing. I was involved with one such encounter. We were at the fall race in Charlotte in 1965, I was trying to get in the race with a '64 Pontiac, Smokey was there with a '65 Impala (the usual black and gold # 13). In those days, on the super speedways they ran 4 qualifing laps and they qualified on two days, usually on Thursday and Friday. Smokey had Bobby Johns driving his car and they qualified on the first day and they were either on the pole or on the outside of the front row, can't remember but Smokey wouldn't accept the time because it wasn't a track record. He planned to try again on Friday to set a new record. Meanwhile, I've got this old Pontiac that we had basicly destoryed at Daytona I'm trying to get it through inspection and we spent Thursday and Friday in the frame shop there at the speedway. Qualifing is going to be cut off at 4:30 Friday afternoon and I get in line to go out to qualify with 0 practice laps and Smokey waits until the last car gets in line which is me, then Bobby Johns rolls out behind me. I get on the track just before the 4:30 deadline and don't run fast enough to make the race. Bobby doesn't get to go out becasue the time ran out. I felt really bad that Bobby didn't get to go out so I went over to Smokey and told him I was sorry that I took up the last spot out which caused him not to get out. Smokey just shrugged his shoulders and said don't worry about it, I wasn't going to race on Sunday anyway, we were just trying to set a track speed record. With that, they pulled out and headed back to Daytona.
BTW....Smokey didn't have a crew, just him and Bobby flat towing the car with a tow bar behind a black '65 Impala. They 4 extra tires in the trunk of the race car and a tool box in the trunk of the tow car, that's all they had.
