The 1979 Coca-Cola 500 was a

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

Winston Cup Series The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), the most prestigious stock car racing series in the United States. The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and fro ...

racing event that took place on July 30, 1979, at

Pocono International Raceway Pocono Raceway (formerly known as the Pocono International Raceway in early years) is a tri-oval track in Blakeslee, Pennsylvania. The track has held a variety of events since its opening in 1969, including NASCAR, IndyCar Series, and IMSA GT ...

in Long Pond,

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. By the following season, NASCAR had completely stopped tracking the year model of all the vehicles and most teams did not take stock cars to the track under their own power anymore. Only manual transmission vehicles were allowed to participate in this race; a policy that NASCAR has retained to the present day. During qualifying an unnamed driver dared James Hylton to turn the slowest lap he could while qualifying. Hylton turned in a blistering 45 mph average for the lap, and NASCAR officials promptly fined him $500.

Background

Pocono Raceway is one of six

superspeedway Oval track racing is a form of motorsport that is contested on an oval-shaped race track. An oval track differs from a road course in that the layout resembles an oval with turns in only one direction, and the direction of traffic is almost uni ...

s to hold

races; the others are

Daytona International Speedway Daytona International Speedway is a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida, Daytona Beach, Florida, United States, about north of Orlando, Florida, Orlando. Since opening in 1959, it has been the home of the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race ...

Michigan International Speedway Michigan International Speedway (formerly named as the Michigan Speedway from 1997 to 2000) is a D-shaped oval superspeedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. It has hosted various major auto racing series throughout its existence, including NASCAR, Cham ...

Auto Club Speedway Auto Club Speedway (known as California Speedway before and after the 2008–2023 corporate sponsorship by the Automobile Club of Southern California) was a , D-shaped oval superspeedway in unincorporated San Bernardino County, California, ne ...

Indianapolis Motor Speedway The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a motor racing circuit located in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana. It is the home of the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400, and and formerly the home of the U ...

and

Talladega Superspeedway Talladega Superspeedway (Alabama International Motor Speedway from 1969 to 1989) is a tri-oval superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama. Built in 1969, the track has hosted a variety of racing events, primarily races sanctioned by NASCAR. The track is ...

. The standard track at Pocono Raceway is a three-turn superspeedway that is long. The track's turns are banked differently; the first is banked at 14°, the second turn at 8° and the final turn with 6°. However, each of the three straightaways are banked at 2°.

Race report

While originally scheduled for July 29, 1979, it was postponed one day due to rain. The race was run on Monday, so most of the NASCAR fans had to go work that day. Two hundred laps were completed in four hours and twenty minutes. Seven cautions flags slowed the race for 49 laps;

Cale Yarborough William Caleb Yarborough (March 27, 1939 – December 31, 2023) was an American NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver and owner, businessman, farmer, and rancher. He was the first driver in NASCAR history to win three consecutive championships, winn ...

eventually defeated

Richard Petty Richard Lee Petty (born July 2, 1937), nicknamed "the King", is an American former stock car racing driver who competed from 1958 to 1992 in the former NASCAR Grand National and Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Series), most nota ...

under the race's final yellow flag. This would result in Yarborough's third win of the year. Forty thousand fans attended a live racing event where the average speed of the vehicles would be . None of the drivers on the starting grid were born in Wisconsin; which is still true in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

Harry Gant Harold Phil Gant"Harry P. Gant"
(born January 10, 1940) is an American former

The majority of the vehicles involved in the race had

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ) is an American automobile division of the manufacturer General Motors (GM). In North America, Chevrolet produces and sells a wide range of vehicles, from subcompact automobiles to medium-duty commercial trucks. Due to the promi ...

as their manufacturer. Steve Gray would make his NASCAR debut that resulted in a last-place finish. He crashed on the very first lap of the race with

Roger Hamby Roger Hamby (born July 2, 1943, in Ferguson, North Carolina, Ferguson, North Carolina) is an American former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Winston Cup Series driver and NASCAR team owner whose career spanned from 1977 NASCAR Winston Cup Series, 1977 ...

and

Al Holbert Alvah Robert Holbert (November 11, 1946 – September 30, 1988) was an American automobile racing driver who was a five-time champion of the International Motor Sports Association, IMSA IMSA GT Championship, Camel GT series and the fifth driver to ...

; taking home only $1,305 in winnings ($ when adjusted for inflation).

Dale Earnhardt Ralph Dale Earnhardt (; April 29, 1951February 18, 2001) was an American professional Stock car racing, stock car driver and racing team owner, who raced from 1975 to 2001 in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Serie ...

fractured both of his

clavicle The clavicle, collarbone, or keybone is a slender, S-shaped long bone approximately long that serves as a strut between the scapula, shoulder blade and the sternum (breastbone). There are two clavicles, one on each side of the body. The clavic ...

s when on Lap 98 his right rear tire exploded and he hammered the boilerplate barrier in Turn Two. As a result, he had to miss the next four races (re-emerging at the 1979 running of the ''Capital City 400''). Darrell Waltrip's championship aspirations took a hit by pitting late in the race and losing the lead for good on lap 187 regulating him to a seventh-place finish while top rival for the championship Richard Petty finished in second place. Had Darrell Waltrip finished ahead of rival Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip would have probably won the championship in 1979. A freight train of cars ended up drafting and swapping positions for a majority of the event. Multiple times the lead changed up to four times in a single lap, notably the first two laps and Lap 120 when Waltrip, Yarborough, Petty, and Bonnett raced five abreast with Bobby Allison, a lap down after a distributor wire had to be replaced under yellow, and all nearly crashed in Turn One. It took 62 starts, but Ricky Rudd finally collects his first lead-lap finish in Winston Cup, nevertheless managing to collect 20 top-10s prior to this event. Cale Yarborough would take home $21,465 in winnings for finishing first in the race ($ when adjusted for inflation). 56 lead changes were recorded in this race; a rarity outside

and a definite record setter for Pocono Raceway. All of the 39 drivers that qualified for the race were

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

-born men.

Race results

Source:

Standings after the race

References

{{authority control Coca-Cola 500 Coca-Cola 500 NASCAR races at Pocono Raceway