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Speed sells cars. So says the gospel, according to Ford and Chrysler. (General Motors takes a different road to the bank.) Last year Ford laid out $5,000 per car souping up its racing engines, only to lose the "stock car" championship to Chrysler, which installed custom-built, $12,000 "hemispherical-head" engines in its Plymouths. That was too heady for Bill France, owner of Florida's Daytona International Speedway and president of NASCAR, who has the funny idea that somebody besides a factory ought to be able to compete in the contest. He banned the "hemi-head"--which put Chrysler in such a huff that it refused to race at all at this year's Daytona Speed Weeks. "France made stock-car racing," groused a Chrysler mechanic. "Now he'll kill it."

At the races last week, Ford monopolized the entries, as everybody expected, and speeds were a few m.p.h. slower. Did that kill the excitement? Hardly. In a 100-mile qualifying race, Florida's Rod Eulenfeld blew an engine going into the east turn at 160 m.p.h. His 1963 Ford caromed off the retaining wall, skidded 200 yds. on its top and burst into flames. Before anyone could bat an eye, the track was covered with slewing, sliding cars, piling into each other. Eleven were more or less reduced to junk, but, incredibly, nobody was seriously injured.

Move Over, Cousin. And how about the competition? There were the 1965 factory Fords, breezing cockily around the 2 1/2-mile oval, confident of sweeping everything in sight. Zoom! Past them flashed two 1964 Mercurys, privately entered cousins belonging to Bud Moore, a taciturn garage owner from Spartanburg, S.C. In the time trials, Darel Dieringer clocked 166.66 m.p.h. in a Ford-powered Mercury to win the pole position for the start of the 500. Somehow, Moore was getting more out of his power plants than the factory experts who built them in the first place.

By the time the 500 was 20 laps old, 13 of 43 cars were out of the race with shattered engines, blown tires and assorted malfunctions. Dieringer's Mercury hit a piece of metal and shredded a tire. When he got rolling on all four again, the fight was between Marvin Panch and Fred Lorenzen, both driving new Fords.

Smack at 165 m.p.h. On the 127th lap, the two cars snarled full bore around the west turn, with Panch "drafting" Lorenzen, tucked into his slipstream only inches behind. "I had just about 6 ft. between me and the wall," Lorenzen said later. "All of a sudden, we ran into hard rain; Panch started around me on the outside, and we really connected. My right front fender smacked the wall. Then my right rear smacked the wall and straightened me out. Good thing too. I was doing about 165 m.p.h."

Panch spun onto the grass, and all the way back to sixth place. Dieringer shot into second. But the rain was blinding, and worried officials flashed the yellow caution light--no passing. Then the red light was on. After 332.5 of the scheduled 500 miles, the race was over. Lorenzen was the winner over

Dieringer's Mercury. In third place was another factory Ford; in fourth, another Moore Mercury. Ford officials breathed a sigh of relief--until the next race.

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