Daytona 500

The 50th running of the Daytona 500 is this weekend . So I have decided to run some links about the storied race, so you my faithful reader can glean some insight into the race and it’s history. If you are not familiar with NASCAR, you can bone up here.

History

AP Photo — Beauchamp and Petty at 1959 Daytona 500.

The Sporting News has an article relating some reflections about the Daytona 500.

CBS was the first to put the Daytona 500 on live.

“By the time we got to the day of the race, it was pouring rain. We already knew that there was a huge snowstorm in the Northeast and the Midwest that was creating a playing field for some ratings success. But now it’s raining hard the morning of the race. All the CBS brass was down there for the race, and my boss turns to me and says, ‘We don’t have to pay for this if it’s rained out, do we?’ And I said, ‘Not only do we have to pay, we have to air it live on Monday.’ Not the best feeling.
~~ Neal Pilson, former CBS Sports executive

Nothing like stepping out on a limb and have it get sawed off.

The early days were scary.

“I was at the first one in 1959 as a young sportswriter, when Lee Petty won — it took three days and they had to reverse the winner (when Johnny Beauchamp had been declared the unofficial winner at the photo finish). What I remember covering it in the early years was the fear among the drivers. It was by far the biggest track that they had ever driven on and the banks were so high and wide open. Only you, God, the gas pedal and Goodyear tires determined whether you got back.
~~Max Muhleman, Sports marketing consultant

Some things never change.

“I never get tired of coming up out of that tunnel into the infield,” three-time Daytona 500 champ Dale Jarrett says. “You come up through there, and see Turn 4 to your left and the front stretch to your right. It never gets old. You can’t help but think to yourself, ‘I’ve got a shot to win this thing.’”

Quotes

Lee Petty on the track:

“It was the biggest damn thing I had ever seen,” inaugural race winner Lee Petty recalled in 1999, still awe struck a full 40 years after the experience. “To most folks, it was scary as hell, too.”

Cotton Owens:

“I remember seeing those pictures,” driver-owner Cotton Owens says. “The banks were so steep that the machinery had to be chained to posts at the top of the turns to keep it from rolling over.”

Why Daytona is special:

They had gotten the early scouting report from Fireball Roberts after his 146 mph test lap one week earlier, only a few miles an hour slower than the top speeds at the Indy 500. “There’s only one limit to how fast you can go there,” Roberts told his buddies. “How much engine you bring and how much nerve you have.”

Richard Petty:

“Here’s a bunch of guys who were running on quarter-mile dirt tracks three nights a week,” says Richard Petty, who came to Daytona all of 20 years old and hoping to make just his 11th career start. “We come up through that tunnel, and it’s two and half miles of the blackest blacktop you’ve ever seen. The turns are banked higher than anything in the world, and they’re taller than any building that most of us had ever seen. It was like, ‘Wait, you want us to drive on that?‘”

Fifty years of tires popping, and engines blowing.

The Cheatin’, and the Fightin’

• Will cheating be an issue at Daytona 500, again.
• Waltrip’s cheating almost cost him. Now he has the second pole position.
• The first fight of the year.
• Jimmie Johnson known for cheating has pole at Daytona 500
• Bobby Kennedy banned last year
• and some changes to spice it up
• Qualifying is different this year
• it’s all for you dear fan
• some say it’s not enough
• NASCAR needs to be saved?
• Everyone is crying about Toyota
• Evil Toyota and it’s speed

Tags: daytona, daytona 500