2012 Daytona 500: History of Daytona 500

NASCAR may have been going to Darlington Raceway longer, and Indianapolis Motor Speedway may hold more history. But one track and one race reigns over both, and it is the site of unquestionably NASCAR’s biggest and most prestigious event.

Since it opened it’s doors in 1959, Daytona International Speedway has been the Mecca of stock car drivers and fans alike. It has been the sight of triumph and tragedy – sometimes both at the same time – and has had more than its fair share memorable moments.

The first 500-mile race on the 2.5-mile track featured a side-by-side photo finish which resulted in NASCAR initially awarding the victory to Johnny Beauchamp before reversing it’s decision and awarding the win to Lee Petty three days later.

From that moment forth, the legacy of NASCAR’s premiere event would only grow.

The second chapter added to the Book of Enchantment that is the Daytona 500 would be added four years later.

What made Lund’s victory so special wasn’t because it was the first Daytona 500 win for Glen and Leonard Wood, but that Lund was a last minute replacement for original driver Marvin Panch, who was injured in a testing accident weeks prior. It was Lund who rescued Panch and pulled him out of the fiery wreckage.

As a thank you, Panch asked the Wood Brothers to give his ride to Lund. Lund capitalized on the opportunity and drove the famous No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford to victory.

Richard Petty would win his first of seven Daytona 500’s when he dominated the 1964 affair, leading 184 of 200 laps and easily earning his first superspeedway victory of any kind.

The 1967 version of “The Great American Race” was won by none other than Mario Andretti, two years before the future Formula One World Champion would claim glory in the other 500-mile race of note – the Indianapolis 500.

In 1972, another famous IndyCar driver picked up the checkered flag, when A.J. Foyt became the third different driver to take the Wood Brothers to Victory Lane.

Throughout the 60s and 70, Richard Petty and David Pearson dominated NASCAR’s then-Grand National Series (now Sprint Cup). In a twelve-year span they combined to win nine series championships, but it was in 1976 on the high-banks of Daytona where the two legendary combatants would stage one of the sport’s great finishes.

Leading on the last lap, Petty was passed by Pearson heading down the backstretch and into Turn-3. As was common then and still is today when racing at Daytona, Petty attempted to use the draft to power under Pearson coming off of the final corner and towards the checkered flag.

However, Petty never cleared Pearson’s car, and the two champions made contact with one another with each spinning through the grass – just short of the finish line.

Petty’s Dodge was finished and he was unable to get his car restarted. Pearson, however, had the presence of mind to keep his foot on the clutch while spinning and when he came to a stop, he put his car into gear and limped across the finish line. It was his first and last Daytona 500 victory, but it came in a manner no one will ever forget.

To everyone’s astonishment, that dramatic finish would be topped just three years later in a race that would forever put NASCAR on the minds of the American public.

In 1979 CBS decided for the first time to broadcast the 500 in it’s entirety. NASCAR’s top race would be shown flag-to-flag throughout the country. And as luck would have it, a blizzard would hit the northeast, keeping people in their homes watching television.

What they saw was a finish where the first- and second-place cars driven by Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough intentionally wrecked one another on the white flag lap, Richard Petty come out of nowhere to claim his sixth 500 victory, and then in what might be the most famous, or infamous, depending on your perspective, moment in NASCAR history, Allison, along with his brother Bobby, would engage Yarborough physically.

Live on national television.

People, who never considered themselves race fans before, instantaneously took sides and became ardent supporters of the blossoming sport. A moment which would forever launch NASCAR to once unforeseen heights, had also become a moment always associated with NASCAR’s premiere event.

As the 80s rolled in, Yarborough in 1983 and ’84 would again take center stage, becoming just the second driver (Richard Petty was the first) to take consecutive trips to the Daytona winner’s circle.

Another driver from that fight in ‘79, Bobby Allison, would also have another chance in the sun. Winning the 500 for a second time in 1982 and in a poignant moment that touched on the bond between father and son, beating his son Davey to the finish line to collect his third Harley J. Earle Trophy.

Throughout the 80s, Dale Earnhardt came close many times to winning the one race that had always eluded him. But with each passing year, Earnhardt would find some way not to win.

But it was the 1990 running of the Daytona 500 where the “Earnhardt Hex” really took on a life of its own.

Dominating all afternoon, it appeared to be a foregone conclusion that “The Intimidator” would finally taste victory at Daytona. Except coming off Turn-2 on the final lap the famous black No. 3 car slowed, a victim of a punctured tire. Derrike Cope, a little regarded driver from Spanaway, Wash. swept under Earnhardt and scored the win.

Close runner-up finishes in 1993 and ’95 added further proof that the Daytona 500 was simply not Earnhardt’s race to win.

However, that all changed on a cloudy Sunday afternoon in 1998.

Out front as he frequently was at Daytona, Earnhardt was leading with two laps to go when the caution came out for an accident on the backstretch. Deftly beating Bobby Labonte and Jeremy Mayfield back to the start-finish line, Earnhardt finally secured the one thing which had always slipped out of his grasp.

Dale Earnhardt had won the Daytona 500.

A celebration worthy of such an achievement then commenced. Every crew member from every team greeted the seven-time champion as he came down pit road.

Just three years later Earnhardt was involved in another incident no will ever forget. Tragically losing his life after a head-on crash into the Turn-4 wall.

Making it all the more striking was as Earnhardt’s damaged machine came to a rest at the bottom of the track, the car he owned, driven by Michael Waltrip was flying underneath the checkered flag to bring home the victory for a car owner who, as we would find out later, was no longer in the present.

As low as NASCAR fans felt at that moment, Dale Earnhardt Jr. claiming victory in the 2004 edition of the 500 six years to the day his father was killed, helped do away with some of the sadness that still lingered.

Over the next seven years, the 500 would feature past and future series champions adding another footnote to their already impressive résumés (Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Matt Kenseth), numerous green-white-checkered finishes and unlikely winners (Ryan Newman and Jamie McMurray).

But the unlikeliest of winners was a precocious, 21-year-old driver named Trevor Bayne making just his second career Sprint Cup start.

There he was last year, driving for that same venerable Wood Brothers team which had won in 1963, ’68 and ’72 celebrating like all those who had celebrated before him.

And why shouldn’t he?

After all this is Daytona; the birthplace of NASCAR and where a win means more than anywhere else.