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Those who said he followed the rules doesn’t know what they are talking about. I knew Gary very well and new Kenny Weld. Both went to jail for drug trafficking. Drug money built that car and drug money paid the officials. If you’re ok with that, then fine.

Back when ESPN reported on sports and did a good job of doing so.

I'd never heard of Geoff Bodine until he came to Oxford Maine in the summer of 1980 and won the 250 in a legendary duel with Butch Lindley. Gives me goose bumps knowing this was just three months after that.

I like how the cheating guy said they worked long and hard to get there. You still cheated!😅

Lincoln Continental 😂

I remember this well I was at this race and the race after this and I'll tell you they just build a better mousetrap that's all I can tell you

Casey Minks in El Paso Texas did something similar with an interior of a station wagon stock car. It was awesome.

The attraction to dirt track & midget racing was the blue collar simplicity. This techno wizardry is exactly what turns people off from Formula 1 etc. Keep it simple, cheap hot dogs and cold beer beats a 5 million car car every time.

ive been to the syracuse mile many times. what an awesome place. the ground round nationals.

It was a simpler time.

I was there and I hated that car. Its 43 years later and I still hate it. It did NOT make the sport better, it created sheet metal wars unnecessary if DIRT would have just disqualified a car that was NOT a modified. Proof? When rules called for it to be re-bodied, it was uncompetitive and brutally UGLY. DIRT screwed the weekend racers and it shows today with low car counts partly caused by the extra expenses and need for paying skilled body manufacturers indtead of home mechanics. I will always hate that 112.

ESPN in 1980, barely a year old.

Aerodynamics is UNAMERICAN!!! A ladder chassis and a BIG V8 were good for my daddie so that’s it for me. Anything else is communism.

Gary followed the rules. Great job to his whole team. Innovation is everything. He did have an advantage, but an unfair advantage, I think not. Simple had a team that understood the rules and built a true race car. GREAT JOB!!!!!!!!!

Just to clarify things, it's not building a wing that creates the ground effect, that's a popular misconception. In fact that misconception lead a lot of F1 teams down the wrong path when they tries to copy the Lotus model. A venturi is what is actually built to created the downforce. See Bernoulli's principle.

Kinda makes ya wonder why a guy with stuff going on behind the scenes like Balough. Would want to draw attention to themselves on national TV?

When did Andy Kaufman (Bodine) race cars????

Hollywood NEED'S to get off their ass & make a major movie about Gary & his amazing life, you listening Opie?? 😉

Gary Balough using that cocaine cash

Thr supermods at oswego back in the day were a radical departure from sanity. These are wild also.

Whys this a controversy? Whats wrong impoving things? This is why too many bureaucrats with power is destruction of progress

$125k in 1980😂

the Geoff Bodine interview looks like a Super Dave Osborne episode 🤣

Fans should be thrilled when someone advances their sport!

A little while after this race Balough admitted the reason he won was partly due to the body, but mostly to the creative air intake this car had. He said they designed the body so radically that no one would be looking at the air intake and how they created a ram induction system.

Little known fact about Gary's Batmobile that you could only know by seeing it in person. The car had an air intake scoop built into the hood. at the very front of that scoop, a painter hand wrote in red paint. "The Orgasmatron" on it. lol.

Dang look at Bobs hair and Larry bought stock in Aqua Net😅

Dang look at Bobs hair and Larry bought stock in Aqua Net😅

Dang look at Bobs hair and Larry bought stock in Aqua Net😅

After watching this video the other day I asked my friend, former NASCAR driver David Reutimann about this race. He was 10 years old and remembers it well. His Dad, Buzzie Reutimann, was one of the drivers that thrashed on their car to make it competitive. Buzzie finished 2nd in this race. Buzzie is 81 years old and still winning dirt modified races in Florida, he's the 2022 champion at Volusia Speedway Park.

To bad you couldn’t do offset chassis with same design

That car was done in a wind tunnel.. using corrugated metal roofing in that area and the depth of it.. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually was.. anyone with half a brain knows slowing down the air going over the top of car gonna stick better and be more affective..

Larry's moustache is a living thing.

was this race at the fairgrounds?

This director has the same issue as today's NASCAR. They don't want what the avid fan wants.

From a historical note, this is really good stuff. Ironically about this same time, the Wedge cars were starting to emerge in the dirt Super Late Model world which down here in the southern US we saw a lot of. I guess there was just something in the drinking water of the time and it showed up on the race track. Being from the south and only time we'd see the modifieds were mostly on TV like this ESPN broadcast, looking at it through present day eyes I can see the historical DNA from which the present day Big Block Modifieds came from. Thanks for posting so we could appreciate the history.

This kinda reminds me of all the guys in NHRA Top Fuel during the 80s who tried different styles and designs to their cars

Not a controversy, when you stay within the rules. They’re just pissed off, that someone was smart enuf to build a car that can win every race

This is exactly what made the earlier years of racing great, innovative engineering. Gary with this Batmobile. The turbine at indy, the rear engine at indy, rear engine top fuel cars, winged sprint cars, just about everything in the first 40 years of Nascar. BTW, Gary funded this racing operation with drug running money. Another great story

Bigup rudbwoy Gary

And now they all look like chopped up mini vans, ugliest turds in racing😂🤣

Gary came in like the criminal that he was and went way over the top like the criminal that he was and took the money like the criminal he was and ended up in prison like the criminal he was

This back when ESPN reported on sports instead of trying to be the "sport" ....... now their "woke" azz is "broke" .......... good riddance ...................

Thats what use to make racing awesome... Now Cookie Cutter Bodies, and restrictions to keep the smartest people down. So the lazy people don't quit.

Being a syracuse,N.Y. Native,I was surprised to find this.

That just looks like a modern dirt modified. Was this the point where dirt and asphalt late models started to look different? Like sprint cars and Indy cars have a common ancestor in the original Indy cars?

Andy Fusco lookin like a Die Hard villian

I miss these two great broadcasters, Larry Nuber and Bob Jenkins. Icons of the racing world. I would much rather watch the World of Outlaws (Steve Kinser) compared to todays NASCAR tbh.

and now Balough is much loved and seen as a great pioneer of the sport!

Manufactured "controversy" considering that the design basically became STANDARD shortly after the race. It wasn't "controversy", it was "innovation that the rest of the field followed".