1979 Daytona 500

I discovered that NASCAR has posted a full race replay of the 1979 Daytona 500 on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K-GkXe70Vk

For those who aren't familiar with the history, this was the first time a NASCAR race was broadcast live in its entirety on national television on CBS.  As it turned out, the entire northeast US had been hit with a huge snowstorm that weekend.  As a result there was nothing for people to do but stay inside and watch TV, and since in those days there was pretty much just three networks and the other two weren't showing anything particularly interesting that afternoon, the race got huge ratings.  So, it was a game changer for NASCAR - prior to that the rest of the country outside of the southeast hadn't paid much attention.  

It also had an exciting finish, when Cale Yarbrough and Donnie Allison took each other out when they were running 1st and 2nd on the last lap.  They got into a big fistfight in the infield, while Richard Petty went on to win the race.

GOOD TIMES !

Yeah....back when 'rubbin was racin' not this nonsense. Don't watch except when the circus goes to road courses.

There used to be a Swedish channel on YouTube (was removed) that had whole network broadcasts of NASCAR races from the '70's and '80's.  These even had the commercials!  He had about 4000 car related videos at one time and got his plug pulled due to copyright.  He went by Leif Ericsson or something similar.  I think he even came back up for awhile but with fewer videos.

edit:  he is back...though there isn't as much here as before, there's a mountain of hard to find car films

https://www.youtube.com/user/Leif65chrysler

In reply to stuart in mn :

Actually, the finish of that race was even more exciting, because Donnie Allison had won Stage One, and of course Cale Yarborough had won Stage Two, but since Richard Petty took Stage Three, it was actually a three way tie. And each driver had scored a bonus point for leading a lap, but Petty had actually led Lap One, so he got an extra half point for that and after the third Green-White-Checker, he was declared to be the winner, even though his pit crew should have been penalized for wearing helmets instead of trucker hats and smoking Marlboros instead of Winstons during his final splash 'n go pit stop.

I started to watch it - what a group of famous names.  It’s also amazing how much better the TV coverage has changed.  

Woody said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

Actually, the finish of that race was even *more* exciting, because Donnie Allison had won Stage One, and of course Cale Yarborough had won Stage Two, but since Richard Petty took Stage Three, it was actually a three way tie. And each driver had scored a bonus point for leading a lap, but Petty had actually led Lap One, so he got an extra half point for that and after the third Green-White-Checker, he was declared to be the winner, even though his pit crew should have been penalized for wearing helmets instead of trucker hats and smoking Marlboros instead of Winstons during his final splash 'n go pit stop.

I was going to write something like this, but it would have never been this good.  Well done, sir.

Woody said:

 and smoking Marlboros instead of Winstons during his final splash 'n go pit stop.

Close to the beginning of the broadcast, Brock Yates interviews a crew chief for one of the teams (I forget which one) and he's smoking a cigarette right there in the pit lane.

They were also talking about a talented rookie in the race named Dale Earnhardt.