Catchfence

HAMMOND, FORMER YARBOROUGH CREW MEMBER, RECALLS 1979 DAYTONA 500 BRAWL THAT PUT NASCAR ON THE MAP

SPEED™/FOX SPORTS ANALYST REFLECTS ON LAST-LAP CRASH, HISTORIC FISTFIGHT THAT CAPTIVATED THE NATION

Hammond: “I remember looking over at Junior (Johnson) and thinking, ‘If the boss man isn’t running down there, he must not think it’s a big enough deal’ … so I started cleaning up the pits.” 

While a massive snowstorm raged in the Northeast, the perfect storm rolled into Daytona International Speedway 30 years ago.  The first live flag-to-flag coverage of a 500-mile race, a last-lap crash, fisticuffs and millions of housebound Americans collided to put NASCAR on the map following the infamous 1979 Daytona 500. 

Jeff Hammond, a young crew member for the feisty Cale Yarborough that day, could have had a front row seat to the legendary slugfest but instead followed the lead of his boss and car owner, Junior Johnson. 

Without today’s benefit of a real-time television broadcast in the pit stall, Hammond and crew listened to the track announcer’s race call as their driver battled for the win in the illustrious Daytona 500.  But Yarborough and Donnie Allison crashed after beating and banging for the lead on the final lap.  While the men emerged from their mangled machines, Bobby Allison stopped to check on the two.  Punches and helmets began flying and Richard Petty took the checkered flag to break a 45-race winless streak.

Hammond, 22 years old at the time, heard the devastating news that his driver wasn’t headed to Victory Lane but it took him a moment to process the spectacle unfolding in Turn Four.

“Our crew’s yelling, ‘Hey – there’s a fight down in Turn Four!’” said Hammond, a two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship crew chief who now serves as a SPEED and FOX Sports analyst.  “Half the crew took off running toward Turn Four to help Cale out.  I remember looking over at Junior (Johnson) and thinking, ‘If the boss man isn’t running down there, he must not think it’s a big enough deal and he certainly didn’t tell me to go down there,’ so I started cleaning up the pits. 

“I realized Junior wasn’t big on the fighting thing and I later asked him, ‘Junior, why didn’t you go down there?’ He said, ‘He started it.  He can finish it,’” Hammond added.

That may have been one of the first fights Hammond walked away from … or at least didn’t walk directly toward.

“I’m enough of a country redneck that losing the Daytona 500 that way and having Cale down there fighting reminded me of the way we used to do it on short tracks,” Hammond said.  “If you can’t win the race, you’ve got to win the fight.”

But NASCAR was the hands-down heavyweight champion of the year in the 1979 Daytona 500. Many credit the brawl with putting the sport on the national map and elevating it to the prominence and skyrocketing popularity it enjoyed over the next few decades.

“Even after 30 years, it’s hard to put into words what really was accomplished that day by a twist of fate with the snowstorm and subsequent fight after those guys had raced their guts out for 500 miles,” stated Hammond, who, 10 years later led Darrell Waltrip to his Daytona 500 victory.  “Even the guy who ended up winning the race was monumental – Richard Petty. I don’t think the entire debacle would have had the same impact if someone besides The King had won that race.”

Steve Byrnes, host of Trackside Live, looks past the flying fists and words to the real people the skirmish revealed to millions of Americans.

“As sports fights go, it was pretty typical and it looked a lot worse than it actually was,” Byrnes said.  “What it really portrayed was the passion and emotion of racers. To many people, stock car racing and auto racing in general is about the car. This dust-up showed casual viewers and sports fans alike that these were men who desperately wanted to win and were willing to fight for that privilege. Bobby Allison’s classic quote of ‘Cale Yarborough’s nose somehow landed on my fist,’ is one of the all-time greatest lines.”

Jimmy Spencer, who drove for Bobby Allison in the ‘90s, was a spectator in the Daytona grandstands that day, seated in his family’s season tickets block. 

“Cale and Donnie were two determined guys,” said Spencer, NASCAR RaceDay analyst for SPEED.  “Cale wanted to win and Donnie didn’t want to surrender. That was pure, unadulterated racing.  Both refused to give up, crashing and giving us one of the most exciting Daytona 500s of all time.” 

While Hammond appreciates the magnitude of the Allison/Yarborough fistfight in the muddy infield, it took him a few days to grasp exactly what had happened and its implications for the sport he loved.

“It was difficult to understand what was going on that day and what it meant to NASCAR until later that week and even the following week because Donnie and Cale got together at Rockingham in the very first part of the race and spun each other out again,” Hammond recalled.  “What really got my attention was the media frenzy and talk amongst the radio and newspaper reporters.  That’s when I began to realize the impact that fight had on the sport.  It was the talk of the racing world and the sports world in general.”

“Prior to that race, we could catch NASCAR snippets on Wide World of Sports between figure skating and gymnastics,” said Larry McReynolds, SPEED and FOX Sports analyst.  “That fight is one reason that, 30 years later, when you see a promo for the Daytona 500, chances are you’ll see that wreck on the backstretch and the fight in turns three and four.  It was the perfect storm to take NASCAR to a new level of popularity and notoriety.”

        The fight garnered a perfect “10” from “Mr. Excitement” himself.

        “Those guys were frustrated as hell with each other and I loved it,” Spencer said.  “It’s no different than Saturday night racing and the arguing and fighting that ensues when someone loses a race.  Cale, Donnie and Bobby didn’t do anything all of us racers haven’t done before or at least thought of doing.  They just did it at the perfect time for the entire country to watch and be captivated by a Southern-style brawl.  They put NASCAR on the map in a big way and helped us get where we are now.”

        SPEED, now in more than 78 million homes in North America, is the exclusive home of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, Gatorade Duel at Daytona, NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Challenge and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. The only network delivering  live, at-track programming all season long, SPEED offers the definitive pre- and post-race NASCAR Sprint Cup Series programs – NASCAR RaceDay and NASCAR Victory Lane, as well as other popular NASCAR programs including Trackside Live,, NASCAR Performance, NASCAR Live!, This Week in NASCAR, NCWTS Setup  and NASCAR in a Hurry.

SPEED TV, Press Release