Back in the day, NASCAR was graced with the iconic illustration of Mickey Mouse on the hood of a Plymouth racecar. This was during the 1973 race at Talladega Superspeedway when NASCAR driver Dick Brooks won his first and only race in the top flight of American stock car racing, that too with a Mickey Mouse decal on his car.
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Brookes ran around 358 races over 17 years in the sport, starting in 1969 with a self-owned Plymouth racecar. That year he scored 12 top tens along with a 21st place finish in the season standings, thus claiming the Rookie of the Year award. The next year, he improved his run with 15 top-five finishes in 36 races, finishing in 13th place overall.
During the 1970 Georgia 500, Brooks came close to clinching his first win after he managed to lead 133 laps, but ultimately he could only finish in third place, with Richard Petty claiming the win. His first taste of victory would come just three years later, when a stroke of luck allowed him to win the 1973 Talladega 500 race, driving the car of Jimmy Crawford.
The only reason he was driving Crawford’s racecar was because the officials deemed that the latter did not have enough experience to race on a superspeedway. Brooks later went on to race in the top series till 1985 before diving into a short-lived team ownership stint.
Mickey Mouse is public domain soon. Time to make a Dick Brooks 1973 Talladega winner diecast pic.twitter.com/bKalUNQOSl
— nascarman (@nascarman_rr) December 28, 2023
Why was there a Mickey Mouse on the hood of the 72′ Plymouth that Dick Brooks won his only race in?
The exact reason for the #22 car to have a Mickey Mouse illustration on the hood of the car is a bit lost in history. But according to someone on a forum, “The story behind Mickey Mouse on the hood was a comment made by Bill France stating that they were a ‘Mickey Mouse race team’, so they put Mickey on the hood.”
Now the word Mickey Mouse has often been used in the context of drivers who have cheated their way to success or received something they did not work for. In more recent times, Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott has sometimes been branded with that word. This was after he was made the winner following the disqualification of race winners Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch after the 2022 Pocono race.
Meanwhile, not that the Mickey Mouse character has officially entered the public domain starting in 2024, who knows possibly we could see someone in the future get it back on their hoods in the near future.
