The 500 and the fight that changed NASCAR forever
The first break came with the massive blizzard that wreaked havoc on the East Coast, essentially locking television viewers in their homes. The Daytona 500, meanwhile, was to be broadcast live in its entirety for the first time, reaching markets that knew little, if anything, about stock car racing. The 3 ½-hour event finished in stunning fashion, another fortunate turn that featured a muddy, bloody brawl a few hundred yards from the finish line.
It was NASCAR’s version of a perfect storm.
And it changed the sport forever.
“It was just a storybook day,” Hall of Fame driver Darrell Waltrip said. “It started off almost as a disaster, but it ended up like a big, old soap opera.”
Thanks to a landmark television deal with CBS, a winter storm that stranded a large portion of the country and a spectacular ending involving several top drivers — including Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and brothers Bobby and Donnie Allison — the 1979 Daytona 500 was instrumental in broadening racing’s southern roots. Forty years later, it still resonates as perhaps the most pivotal race in NASCAR history.
“It was a wild time,” Hall of Fame driver Bill Elliott said. “It was the talk of the town.”
It was more like the talk of the nation.
The chain of events started a year earlier, when NASCAR founder Bill France sent the effusive Waltrip and veteran commentator Ken Squier to convince TV executives that they needed to broadcast the race from start to finish. At the time, NASCAR’s limited TV exposure would come from short, weekly segments on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.”
France was convinced auto racing was poised for growth, ready to expand beyond the bible belt. TV executives weren’t so sure anyone would care outside the southeast.
France and CBS eventually hashed out details and signed a contract in May 1978 to televise next year’s 500 live for the first time. The logistics were a handful, with CBS installing 12 cameras around the 2 ½mile track and needing an immeasurable amount of cable to make them all work.
The setup was innovative, too. CBS placed one camera directly next to the track, so close to the action that the cameraman had to wear a motorcycle helmet for protection, and another inside a race car. Several drivers balked at mounting the 35-pound camera in the passenger’s side, but Benny Parsons agreed.
Nonetheless, the biggest storm in more than a decade almost ruined all the planning.
Cities were essentially shut down. Roads were impassable. Millions of people ended up getting snowed in, and back then, they had just three network channels for entertainment. In Daytona, it had rained overnight and again the morning of the race. The downpours eventually stopped, and the skies cleared. But the highbanked superspeedway was soaked, and NASCAR had nothing close to the drying technology it has today.
The race needed to go off on time to keep the TV contract intact, so France decided to start it under caution even though the racing surface was far from dry. The belief was 41 cars turning laps at half speed would get it dry enough to race.
Waltrip went out in front of the field for a test lap and radioed back to NASCAR officials that the track was good to go, so after 15 laps under caution, drivers took the green flag for the 21st running of the Daytona 500.
“Before that day, I think people looked at the sport as a bunch of guys having a good time on Sunday afternoon,” Waltrip said. “They didn’t know how serious or passionate the drivers were about racing and winning. I think it really opened a lot of people’s eyes to what this sport was about. We never had a venue do that before.”
The race had plenty of intrigue.
Pole-sitter Buddy Baker had early engine trouble and finished 40th. Three other favorites — the Allison brothers and Yarborough — got tangled up on the backstretch on Lap 31 and fell well behind the leaders.
Donnie Allison and Yarborough managed to get back to the front thanks to two of the fastest cars in the field. They were running 1-2 over the final 20plus laps and had a 17-second lead over a three-car pack that included Petty, Waltrip and A.J. Foyt.
Yarborough waited until the last lap to make his move. He went low to pass Allison coming off Turn 2. Allison blocked him, forcing Yarborough into the backstretch grass. Yarborough’s No. 11 Oldsmobile swerved out of control and moved back up the track and into Allison’s No. 1 Oldsmobile. Both cars got loose at that point, slammed into each again, turned into the outside wall, slid back across the track and came to a halt in the muddy infield.