Guest Post: Jim Smith

In Part One I said auto racing, in the Daytona Beach area, moved from the beach to the high banked Daytona International Speedway in February of 1959. From that first year the track opened to today almost every form of motorized racing has taken place on the oval or the road course of Bill France’s super speedway. What has been remarkable has been its growth from a south east regional United States speedway to the international status that it holds today. Its two largest events are The Rolex 24 at Daytona and the Daytona 500.

The Sixty First Daytona 500 will be run this Sunday February 17th. There is a wealth of historical information already documented about the Daytona 500 and I would like to present a small amount of that information. Some of this information may be well known and some not so well known.

The first Daytona was run on February 22, 1959 and it took three days to declare a winner. The win at the track was given to Johnny Beauchamp, but Lee Petty protested and after three days of looking at film and photographs of the finish, Petty was declared the winner. It was said that Bill France took three days to declare a winner because it kept the media’s attention on the race those extra three days. That would never happen today because of the electronic scoring of the race.

This might be a good time to note that in the past NASCAR wanted those in attendance and the TV audience to know the race winner soon after the race was over. The declared winner was not changed even if the car failed a post race inspection. There was no disqualification and there may have been other penalties, but the win was allowed to stand.

That rule was changed for 2019 with the post race inspection moved to the track immediately after the race. If the winning car fails the post race inspection it will be disqualified and be credited with last place. It will lose credit for the win as well as any stage points earned. All others will be moved up in final finishing order.

That first race was announced by CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite who had a TV crew with him, but there was no live TV coverage of the race. There were no caution periods during the race and three of the first four Daytona 500’s were ran caution free. The 1961 and 1962 races were also run with no caution periods.

“The King” Richard Petty finished 57th out of 59 entries in the first Daytona 500. Back then his nick name was Squirrel. Ironically, if one were to search for pictures from that first Daytona 500 and find pictures of Lee Petty, with his winning car, they will show his name on the car along with the name (Squirrel Sr.) next to it.

There are many interesting statistics about the Daytona 500. Here are a few of them. The driver with the most wins is Richard Petty with 7 wins. Petty Enterprises has the most team wins with 9. The driver with the most attempts without a win is Dave Marcis with 33 races. The oldest winning driver is Bobby Allison at age 50 and the youngest is Trevor Bayne at age 20. There have been 16 races won from the pole with Dale Jarrett winning the last one from the pole in 2000. There have been 8 Pro Football Hall of Fame members as honorary starters.

There have been two sitting Presidents of the United States that were Grand Marshall’s. They were Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Over the years many politicians have attended the race. Some were race fans and many others wished to be seen attending the race as dignitaries.

There were two other events that have had a major impact on the Daytona 500. The first was the first live telecast of flag to flag coverage of the event in 1979. That brought national attention to the race and the infamous fight, at the end of the race, between Cale Yaborough and the Allison brothers which is still talked about today.

The second was the death of Dale Earnhardt on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. His death pushed all the sanctioning organizations to be more aware of safety equipment technology and to upgrade their rules and regulations pertaining to driver and race car safety. Sadly, we can credit his death for many of the safety equipment advances that we observe today.

The Daytona 500 is a blend of competition and entertainment and a combination of skill and luck that will determine the winner. This year, one driver will be happy and thirty nine others not so happy. Many spectators and the TV audience will be satisfied and many will complain about the different aspects of the race they witnessed. Regardless of which side of the fence one chooses to be on it is still racing and that is far better than a world without racing.