the 'RaceStoppers' - a marketing campaign of Pure Oil that debuted at the 1969 Daytona 500, after Linda Vaughn went to work for Hurst, and they didn't want a replacement to outshine Pure Oil again

The cars are the 3 BME Baby Grand Cougars at Cotton Owens garage

Pure Oil (later known as Unocal), the gas company bosses decided it would be better if their beauty queen wasn't quite so famous, as Linda Vaughn's celebrity eclipsed the Pure Oil product.

 So instead of one girl whose popularity eclipsed the company's, they hired a bevy, ushering in the era of the Race Stoppers, four models in miniskirts and white leather boots who debuted at the 1969 Daytona 500.

Unocal's PR man at the time, Bill Brodrick, explained the Race Stoppers' corporate value to an oil company: "Nobody writes about gasoline or oil unless a car burns up," Brodrick says, "so how do you get some [good] publicity? . . . What better way than put four pretty girls with a race driver?"

From left to right they are:
Helen Pollock, Chicago, IL
Cheryl Johnson, Orlando, FL
Ann Romeo, Norfolk, VA
Shron Brown, Waterproof, LA
Photo is credited to Dave Underwood.

https://www.facebook.com/david.mascorro.9889?sk=wall
http://www.prowleronline.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/004619.html


The Last Beauty Standing By Liz ClarkeNovember 16, 2003

Racetrack beauty queens hold special status in the South, as NASCAR promoters figured out the surest way of getting a picture in the next day's newspaper was by having a pretty girl plant a kiss on the winner's grimy face. And so a tradition was born.

Linda Vaughn was the original queen of Victory Lane, a young Georgia beauty whom Tom Wolfe described as "the Life Symbol of stock-car racing" in his 1965 homage to the Southern racing phenomenon, "The Last American Hero." Vaughn never was a Miss Winston, but she was her inspiration, with more titles than a romance novelist: Miss Atlanta International Raceway, Miss Firebird and Miss Hurst Golden Shifter, to name a few. She drove fans wild as Miss Firebird (Pure Oil's name for its top-flight gasoline), circling the racetrack atop her red custom-made Firebird float, perched between the wings of a giant wooden bird as she waved to the howling men in the stands.

As Miss Hurst Golden Shifter, Vaughn was in such demand at racetracks that the gear-shift maker gave her 12 backups, known as the Hurstettes, to fill in when she couldn't appear.

But not long after she and her successor left Pure Oil (later known as Unocal), the gas company bosses decided it would be better if their beauty queen wasn't quite so famous. So instead of one girl whose popularity eclipsed the company's, they hired a bevy, ushering in the era of the Race Stoppers, four models in miniskirts and white leather boots who debuted at the 1969 Daytona 500.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/2003/11/16/the-last-beauty-standing/2804a1bc-d851-47d8-9276-41146bb9d079/