Friday

Daytona At 50: Looking Back At 1974

Daytona International Speedway celebrates its 50th season in 2008, and the previous 49 have been exciting and emotional to say the least. Some years were disappointing, to be sure, but a good share of exciting years have run through the speedway, contributing to its reputation as the sport’s crown jewel.

In its history, numerous individual years stand out, and one that stands out is 1974, because it was a year where racing was under the gun amid an energy crunch, NASCAR’s Winston Cup level was undergoing a costly and painful change in engines, and Daytona saw a pair of its most exciting races ever by some of the sport’s most exciting stars.

The energy crunch began in November 1973 with OPEC’s boycott of the West for its support of Israel in Egypt and Syria’s October 1973 invasion of that country. With measures such as closure of gas stations on weekends, racing was under a big gun, having been the only sport curtailed entirely by the Second World War. Big Bill France of International Speedway Corporation, however, took charge of racing’s response, and with an unprecedented level of cooperation between sanctioning bodies, racing devised fuel conservation methods, notably a ten percent cut in NASCAR race distances and a 30-gallon limit for practices and qualifying. At Daytona during February Speedweeks this led to considerable bartering between race teams for extra fuel; Richard Petty entered two Dodges, one for West Coast racing legend Herschal McGriff, and for Daytona 500 practice Petty ran his standard setup, gave it a check over a few laps, then gave the rest of his fuel allotment to McGriff’s team. The Wood Brothers, whose Mercury was put on the 500 pole by David Pearson, got some extra fuel from former 500 champ Leeroy Yarbrough, who was entered in Daytona’s Sportsman 300.

The teams were running restrictor plates on their big block engines, a return to the plates after a 1972-June 1973 experiment with carburator sleeves. The Firecracker 400 the previous July had seen the return of the plates and the cars considered to beenfit the most were the Chevrolets, which in February 1974 comprised some 28 of 40 starters for the 500.

This 500 was also getting something fairly new – live TV coverage. The week before, ABC Sports announced it would air the start of the 500 and its second half live on its Wide World Of Sports anthology series. Previous TV coverage of the 500 had been on tape-delayed basis or through special closed-curcuit broadcast available only in certain movie theaters.

With the 500’s first 20 laps lopped off the distance and thus not scored – and thus preserving the facade of a 500-mile race – the green flag flew at Lap 21. Petty burst around Pearson but Cale Yarborough stormed into the lead in Turn One; Petty pushed Cale but Pearson stormed past them both on the backstretch, but Cale repassed at the stripe. Petty pushed Pearson back ahead but Cale and Donnie Allison drafted past just as Bobby Allison and Herschal McGriff collided off Two and McGriff plowed into the backstretch dirt wall.

On the restart Donnie stormed past Cale but Pearson and Petty stormed past them both on the same lap. Several more yellows flew and pitstops further shuffled the leaderboard. Bobby Allison, driving a self-owned Chevrolet, recovered from his spin and led, Cecil Gordon led after a subsequent yellow, James Hylton blew past him, Indy champ Johnny Rutherford stormed to the front, then road racing ace George Follmer stormed into the lead in Bud Moore’s Ford but lost it to Cale and the Allison brothers, and clawing into this fight was Coo Coo Marlin.

The lead changed back and forth at a rate that was historic for Daytona, and the crowd of some 100,000 that found some open gas stations and made the race witnessed the fight continue through some more cautions and eventually to A.J. Foyt, who’d started 35th, taking the lead near halfway.

The absurdity of recent controversies over push-drafting was illustrated by Petty as he pushed Foyt and whoever else was ahead of him down every straight. It wasn’t enough to break the draft as Coo Coo Marlin caught and passed them, then Cale Yarborough and Foyt split around him.

Following a yellow at Lap 110 Petty and Donnie Allison hooked up and stated slugging it out up front. Donnie was driving for DiGard Racing, a new team formed in a lavish shop near the speedway the year before and owned by Hampton, CT businessmen Mike DiProspero and the Gardner brothers, Jim and Bill. He and Petty stayed in a draft to break away from the field and also stormed past each other before green flag stops broke up their battle around Lap 150.

George Follmer’s wreck with 30 to go left Petty and Allison alone on the lead lap after Coo Coo was mistakenly blackflagged for a missing lug nut under green. Petty led until Lap 181 when he skated through Four and dove into the pits with a flat tire. Donnie was thus alone on the lead lap, with Cale and A.J. racing to unlap themselves. But with 11 to go it all fell apart as Bob Burcham blew up in the trioval and Donnie skidded through the trioval and spun out with both front tires flat. It cost him a lap between limping to pit road and suffering through a botched airgun.

Petty won the 500 after a race-record 60 lead changes among 15 drivers, a record tied several times since then but not broken until 2006.

When the Winston Cup Grand National cars returned to Daytona for an overcast July 4th, the fuel crisis was past and races were restored to their full advertised length. NASCAR had gone through a costly series of rule changes that eliminated restrictor plates and the big-block engines for which they’d been used.

Bobby Allison, meanwhile, had parked his superspeedway Chevy amid a shortage of parts needed for the small-block engines now being phased into the sport, so he got a call from team owner Roger Penske to drive his car, an AMC Matador. Allison jumped into Penske’s Matador and timed it second for the Firecracker 400.

Other changes hit the top level of the starting field – Buddy Baker was now driving Bud Moore’s Ford while Cale Yarborough now had a teammate; Canadian businessman Allan Clarke bought into Junior Johnson’s team and merged it with his own independent team driven by Canadian rookie Earl Ross; this gave Cale’s #11 sponsorship from Carling Breweries in Toronto, a sponsorship package advertised as a three-plus year deal and one of the first of what would soon become a bevy of important sponsorship packages for race teams.

The ensuing race quickly lived up to Daytona’s reputation – Bobby Allison stormed past pole-sitter Pearson, Donnie Allison drafted past Bobby entering Three, Buddy Baker challenged Donnie, then Bobby stormed three-wide in the trioval and led Lap One. A.J. Foyt quickly challenged as the lead bounced around on almost every lap of the first dozen before Johnny Rutherford blew a tire in Two and spun to a halt.

The lead bounced around all race long as blown engines thinned out the field and in the final 40 laps it was down to Petty, Pearson, Bobby Allison, Cale, and Baker. A spin in the final 20 laps set up the sprint to the finish but also spelled doom for Bobby as an intake valve broke and he lost a lap, finishing fifth.

David Pearson now led Petty and the two put a straightaway on Buddy Baker and Cale Yarborough. Petty was in the advantageous position of drafting the leader; the standard strategy in such racing was for the car in secon dto storm past the leader on the final lap, and the leader was considered helpless to stop it – “There’s no defense I know of against the slingshot,” Charlie Glotzbach had said in 1969.

So, as they took the white flag, Pearson hit his brakes and a surprised Petty jumped around him into the lead. Petty stormed to a half-second lead, but Pearson caught his draft and overhauled him in Four; he stormed underneath in Four and Petty swerved to chop him off but left a lane open for Pearson to clear him at the stripe. Behind them Baker and Cale were locked nose to nose for third and hit the stripe at an exact instant, the first dead heat for a position in NASCAR history.

Petty was upset at Pearson’s move since he’d almost rammed Pearson when he’d slowed down. The two argued in the pressbox after the race and even today have argued about the finish. In any event, after 45 lead changes among nine drivers it was a fittingly audacious finish.

Daytona has seen outstanding racing since then and outstanding finishes since then, but in a sense it has never quite seen the combination of both it had in two races back in 1974.