The 1979 Daytona 500 Fight Everybody Saw

CBS Picked a Fine Day to Show Up

The 1979 Daytona 500 was not just another race with a television camera pointed at it. CBS was carrying the entire thing live, flag to flag, on a major network. NASCAR had been on television before, but often in pieces, on delay or neatly packaged after the racing had already produced whatever bent sheet metal the editors wanted to show.

This time there was no editor standing between America and whatever happened next. The cameras were there when the green flag dropped, and they were still there 500 miles later when two very competitive men reached the final lap with one trophy between them.

Then the weather helped.

A major winter storm buried large parts of the Northeast and Midwest. Millions of people who might otherwise have been doing something useful were stuck inside with a television set, which gave NASCAR the largest live national audience it had ever enjoyed.

All NASCAR needed was a memorable finish.

Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough were about to provide enough material for the finish, the evening news and several decades of arguments afterward.

One of Them Had to Lift

Donnie had controlled much of the closing stretch, but Cale was close enough to make one last run. Coming down the backstretch on the final lap, Yarborough went low and Allison defended. The two cars began leaning on each other at a point in the race where neither driver was likely to discover a sudden respect for personal space.

Exactly who crowded whom has been argued ever since. Yarborough maintained that Allison forced him down onto the apron while he was trying to make the pass. Allison said Cale initiated the contact and put himself there.

Race fans have spent nearly half a century choosing sides, including plenty who were nowhere near Daytona in 1979 and have still managed to become eyewitnesses by sheer determination.

The film does settle one portion of the discussion.

The cars touched again. Then they tangled hard enough that both leaders stopped worrying about the finish line and started heading toward Turn 3 scenery that race cars are not normally supposed to visit.

After 499 miles, Donnie and Cale had reduced the Daytona 500 to one final-lap argument.

They settled it by making sure neither one won.

Richard Petty Had Been Minding His Own Business

Richard Petty was behind them with Darrell Waltrip and A.J. Foyt. None had been the dominant car in the closing fight, which normally means you spend the last lap watching the leaders disappear and thinking about what you should have done twenty laps earlier.

Then Allison and Yarborough removed themselves from the useful portion of the racetrack.

Suddenly the road to the Daytona 500 trophy was open.

Petty came through first, with Waltrip and Foyt behind him. The King had just won his sixth Daytona 500 because the two fellows who had been faster reached Turn 3 and became too occupied with each other to finish the race.

There is a valuable lesson in there somewhere about patience, experience and keeping your nose clean until the other two fellows throw theirs into the infield.

That finish alone would have given CBS a fine afternoon. Petty was one of the biggest names in American racing, the leaders had wrecked on the last lap, and a national audience had watched the whole thing happen live.

A normal television crew could have followed Richard toward Victory Lane and considered the assignment successfully completed.

Somebody at CBS had the excellent sense to remember that two very angry race drivers were still sitting beside wrecked cars in Turn 3.

The cameras went back.

➤ See Richard Petty in Racing Legends

➤ See Darrell Waltrip in Racing Legends

The Race Was Over. Nobody Told the Argument.

Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough climbed out near the wrecked cars. Neither man opened the discussion by congratulating the other on a spirited afternoon or accepting personal responsibility for the mess.

Then Bobby Allison arrived.

Bobby had experienced his own troubles during the race, but what he saw now was his brother Donnie standing beside a wrecked Oldsmobile having a vigorous disagreement with Cale Yarborough.

So Bobby stopped.

Brothers have been making questionable decisions under those circumstances since long before anybody invented stock cars.

The conversation deteriorated quickly. Yarborough and Bobby Allison got into it, Donnie was already part of the dispute, helmets were still within convenient reach and officials who thought their workday had ended with the checkered flag suddenly had three NASCAR drivers trying to settle the final lap without automobiles.

And CBS showed the whole country.

Not a photograph in Monday’s newspaper. Not a cleaned-up retelling from somebody who had spent the evening deciding which details sounded best. America got the wreck, the anger and the fight while it was still happening.

Meanwhile Richard Petty was somewhere else trying to celebrate winning the Daytona 500.

Promotional departments spend fortunes trying to manufacture moments people will talk about for years. NASCAR got one for free because two drivers refused to lift, a third stopped to help his brother, and nobody in the television truck had the poor judgment to change cameras.

➤ See Bobby Allison in Racing Legends

Then Everybody Explained Why Somebody Else Started It

The physical argument ended. The verbal one had plenty of fuel left.

NASCAR fined Cale Yarborough, Donnie Allison and Bobby Allison $6,000 apiece. The Allisons were initially placed on probation as well, which gave Donnie something new to argue about besides the wreck itself.

Donnie insisted that film existed showing Yarborough making the first contact. NASCAR initially disagreed.

Then the story acquired one more piece, because a final-lap wreck, a nationally televised fight and three fines were evidently not enough for one Sunday.

Before the appeal, Donnie received a telephone call from somebody who refused to identify himself. The caller told him NASCAR had another film of the wreck.

At the appeal, officials reviewed several films. One angle showed the initial contact in a way NASCAR had not considered before, and the probation decision changed.

So now the 1979 Daytona 500 had everything: a last-lap wreck, a surprise winner, a family fight, national television, fines, an appeal, a mystery telephone call and another piece of film.

Try fitting all of that into the trophy engraving.

CBS Accidentally Found NASCAR’s Sales Pitch

The significance of the 1979 Daytona 500 was much bigger than three drivers swinging at one another beside wrecked cars. Millions of people who had never sat through an entire NASCAR race had just watched one build naturally toward the sort of ending no television producer could have ordered.

The leaders fought for the Daytona 500 on the last lap and wrecked each other. Richard Petty came through to win. Then the cameras returned to Turn 3 and discovered the fellows who had just thrown away the biggest race of the year were not finished discussing it.

That was NASCAR in one convenient afternoon: fast cars, stubborn drivers, family loyalty, bruised feelings and no guarantee whatsoever that the entertainment ended when somebody waved the checkered flag.

There was nothing polished about it. Nobody had scripted the confrontation or arranged for Bobby Allison to arrive at exactly the right moment. It was racing personalities colliding after the race cars had already done the same thing.

And that was precisely why people remembered it.

CBS had gone to Daytona to televise a stock-car race. What it carried home was a lesson in why stock-car racing could hold an audience even after the winning car had crossed the line.

Richard Petty got the trophy.

Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough got wrecked race cars.

Bobby Allison stopped to help his brother and found himself in the middle of the evening highlights.

And a snowed-in chunk of America learned something useful about NASCAR:

When the race ends, do not reach for the channel knob too quickly.