Larry Dickson
Winchester, Ind. (April 9, 1972) -Larry Dickson has served notice to his fellow USAC sprint car competitors that the winning combination for his Leffler Chevy sprinter has been found.
Dickson did so Sunday at Winchester Speedway when he scored a seemingly easy and convincing victory in the 40-lap feature on the high-banked half-mile oval.
Starting from the pole position, Dickson throttled his beautiful dark blue sprinter past a strong but outclassed field of 20 starters to gain his 35th career sprint car win.
Following a restart caused when Roger West and Merle Bettenhausen tangled in the first turn at the drop of the green flag, Dickson literally blasted past the field in record breaking time.
The time for the 40-lap main event was 11 minutes and 27 minutes, 21 seconds better than the track record established by Rollie Beale in 1971.
While being interviewed in victory lane, Dickson revealed that it was Larry Dickson, the wrench man, and not the driver who was the reason for the team's poor start during the first three races this season.
"I believe we finally have found the right combination for the car and we're going to be a hard to beat out there from here on out," said the two-time national sprint champ.
"Probably the main reason for our poor start was because I changed the chassis around, experimenting too much. From now on I'll do the driving and leave the work on the car to Paul (Leffler, the car owner)," he said.
The large crowd that braved the mud and cold couldn't help but notice the different driving styles of two very familiar faces on the sprint circuit, that of Larry "Boom Boom" Cannon and Johnny Parsons Sr.
Many of the same fans that were viewing the activities on Sunday were also at Winchester last September when Cannon took one of the worst flips ever seen in sprint car competition. The hair-raising style of driving done by Cannon wasn't to be seen Sunday.
Parsons turned in another fine driving performance in the Parsons-Meskowski sprinter, capturing the 12-lap semi-feature and finishing seventh in the main event.
Results -
1. Larry Dickson
2. Cy Fairchild
3. Rollie Beale
4. Lee Kunzman
5. Sam Sessions
6. Charlie Masters
7. Johnny Parsons
8. Jerry Poland
9. Tom Bigelow
10. Billy Thrasher
11. Darl Harrison
12. Bruce Walkup
13. Benny Rapp
14. Larry Cannon
15. Gary Bettenhausen
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