1975NASCAR Winston Cup Series | |||
Previous: | 1974 | Next: | 1976 |
The 1975 NASCAR Grand National Winston Cup Series was the 27th season of professionalstock car racing in the United States and the 4th modern era NASCAR Cup series. The season began on Sunday, January 19 and ended on Sunday, November 12. Richard Petty, driving the #43 Petty Enterprises STP Dodge scored his sixth NASCAR Grand National Series Winston Cup Championship. Bruce Hill was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year. NASCAR introduced a new points system for 1975, a system designed by statistician Bob Latford. For the first time, each race on the NASCAR Winston Cup Grand National schedule carried an equal point value, a system that would be used for 36 seasons, from 1975 to 2010. The original points system ran for the first 29 seasons, from 1975 to 2003.
Season recap[edit]
1975 Southern 500. Time of race: 4:17:28 Average speed: 116.825 mph Pole speed: 153.901 mph Cautions: 10 for 72 laps Margin of victory: 25 sec Attendance: 75,000 Lead changes: 20. 1975 NASCAR Late Model Sportsman National Championship Central. KNOWN 1975 EVENTS; Date Track Winner 10 November 1974: Charlotte, NC: Jack Ingram: 23 November 1974. Scoring system: NASCAR 1975 This webpage calculates driver rankings after each race using NASCAR scoring system used in Cup series between 1975 and 2003, in Nationwide and Truck series until 2010. This is also the default scoring system in NR2003. Select one or multiple NR2003 files with race results.
Date | Event | Circuit | Winner |
---|---|---|---|
January 19 | Winston Western 500 | Riverside International Raceway | Bobby Allison |
February 16 | Daytona 500 | Daytona International Speedway | Benny Parsons |
February 23 | Richmond 500 | Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway | Richard Petty |
March 2 | Carolina 500 | North Carolina Speedway | Cale Yarborough |
March 16 | Volunteer 500 | Bristol International Speedway | Richard Petty |
March 23 | Atlanta 500 | Atlanta International Raceway | Richard Petty |
April 6 | Gwyn Staley 400 | North Wilkesboro Speedway | Richard Petty |
April 13 | Rebel 500 | Darlington Raceway | Bobby Allison |
April 27 | Virginia 500 | Martinsville Speedway | Richard Petty |
May 4 | Winston 500 | Alabama International Motor Speedway | Buddy Baker |
May 10 | Music City USA 420 | Nashville Speedway | Darrell Waltrip |
May 18 &19 | Mason-Dixon 500 | Dover Downs International Speedway | David Pearson |
May 25 | World 600 | Charlotte Motor Speedway | Richard Petty |
June 8 | Tuborg 400 | Riverside International Raceway | Richard Petty |
June 15 | Motor State 400 | Michigan International Speedway | David Pearson |
July 4 | Firecracker 400 | Daytona International Speedway | Richard Petty |
July 20 | Nashville 420 | Nashville Speedway | Cale Yarborough |
August 3 | Purolator 500 | Pocono Raceway | David Pearson |
August 17 | Talladega 500 | Alabama International Motor Speedway | Buddy Baker |
August 24 | Champion Spark Plug 400 | Michigan International Speedway | Richard Petty |
September 1 | Southern 500 | Darlington Raceway | Bobby Allison |
September 14 | Delaware 500 | Dover Downs International Speedway | Richard Petty |
September 21 | Wilkes 400 | North Wilkesboro Speedway | Richard Petty |
September 28 | Old Dominion 500 | Martinsville Speedway | Dave Marcis |
October 5 | National 500 | Charlotte Motor Speedway | Richard Petty |
October 12 | Capital City 500 | Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway | Darrell Waltrip |
October 19 | American 500 | North Carolina Speedway | Cale Yarborough |
November 2 | South Eastern 500 | Bristol International Speedway | Richard Petty |
November 9 | Dixie 500 | Atlanta International Raceway | Buddy Baker |
November 12 | Los Angeles Times 500 | Ontario Motor Speedway | Buddy Baker |
1975 NASCAR Winston Cup Results Click on the Race Number to see the complete results for that race. Click on the Site to see Buddy Baker's career results at that track. View career statistics for Buddy Baker Tweet.
Races[edit]
- Winston Western 500Bobby Allison led 173 laps at Riverside International Raceway in Roger Penske's AMC Matador to beat David Pearson by 22 seconds.
- Daytona 500 After falling back several laps due to overheating, Richard Petty pulled forward Benny Parsons in his draft to catch Pearson. With three to go Pearson moved into a group of lapped cars that included Cale Yarborough; inexplicably Yarborough got into Pearson and David spun down the backstretch. The win was Parsons' first since 1973.
- Richmond 500 With a field of only 22 entries due to a dearth of team sponsorships, Petty led 444 laps and won by six laps. Cale Yarborough was among the teams not entered, due to losing Carling sponsorship after the 1974 season.
Nascar 1975 Championship
- Carolina 500 In below-freezing temperatures, Cale Yarborough edged Pearson for the win while Petty finished nine laps down due to the same overheating problems that had plagued him at Daytona.
- Southeastern 500 Richard Petty won his first race at Bristol International Speedway since 1967. Cale Yarborough led 78 laps but fell out with rearend failure. Following the race Maurice Petty found out the team’s overheating problems traced to cracked cylinder heads; “we discovered another cracked head that could have cost us the race.”
- Atlanta 500 With Maurice fixing the team’s cylinder head issues, Richard Petty engaged Pearson in a running duel for the lead, but Pearson lost a lap in the final 30 laps, result of a slow leaking tire and resultant green flag stop. A late caution for Lennie Pond’s engine failure set up a one-lap duel between Petty and Buddy Baker; Petty contended the race ran past 328 laps, a statement supported by his official scorer (Richard Hucks) and the scorers for Pearson (Grover Atkins) and Dick Brooks (Russell Page), but NASCAR showed scoring cards proving it had run the correct distance; among those who scored the race was Richard's daughter Sharon, who said Petty 'went by 328 times.' Manual scoring with cards and a clock created controversy over the years in NASCAR; the system was used until 1993, when NASCAR switched to electronic scoring.
- Rebel 500Darlington Raceway once again proved tougher than Richard Petty as the #43 Dodge crashed out after 159 laps. Benny Parsons and David Pearson got into the late duel for the lead; when Pearson dove under Parsons entering Turn One on lap 350 both cars hammered the wall and ground to a halt. Bobby Allison, who'd been two laps down earlier, unlapped himself and edged Darrell Waltrip and Donnie Allison nose to tail at the stripe.
- Winston 500 Tragedy blackened Buddy Baker's first win since 1973 and the first win for team owner Bud Moore since 1966. Richard Petty's wheel well caught fire while leading and he pitted; his brother in law Randy Owens fitted a hose to a pressurized water tank; the tank exploded, nearly landing on Petty's roof, and Owens was killed. Baker edged Pearson at the stripe while Dick Brooks and Darrell Waltrip had sparkling efforts in finishing out the top four. The race lead changed 51 times among 13 drivers.
- Music City 420 The race was dominated by third-year driver Darrell Waltrip, his first Winston Cup Grand National win in what would become a Hall of Fame career.
- World 600 Petty won a long-distance race at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the first time in his career (he'd won a 100-mile qualifying race there in 1961) as he led 234 laps and finished a lap ahead of Cale Yarborough. The Junior Johnson team by this point had secured Holly Farms sponsorship, allowing the team to contest the remainder of the season. Future seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt made his Cup debut in this race.
- Michigan 400 In a highly competitive race that saw 44 lead changes, Pearson edged Petty for his second win of the season while Dave Marcis and Cale Yarborough finished third and fourth; the top four combined to lead 180 of 200 laps. Petty increased his point lead to 441 over Marcis.
- Firecracker 400 Petty struggled during the weekend, qualifying only at 180 MPH but drafted past Buddy Baker with thirteen laps to go. Donnie Allison finished a distant fifth after winning the pole and was released from the DiGard Racing team and replaced by Darrell Waltrip, who finished fourth.
- Purolator 500 Controversy marred the finish. The lead changed 43 times despite a ninety-minute delay for rain near halfway. Pearson took the lead with 14 to go, but in the final seven laps the Wood Brothers Mercury smoked heavily, to where by Lap 198 it was lapping its own smoke. At that point NASCAR black-flagged Pearson, but the rules allowed a three lap period to obey the flag and there were only two laps to go. It was the third win of the season for Pearson. Under current NASCAR rules with electronic scoring, a time or lap penalty would be added for late-race black flag penalties.
- Talladega 500 Multiple tragedies surrounded the seventh running of NASCAR's late-summer 500-miler at Talladega. Gene Lovell, crew chief for Grant Adcox, died of a heart attack; Adcox withdrew and first alternate Tiny Lund got his starting spot. Mark Donohue drove a Porsche IMSA racer to a new closed-course speed record of 221 MPH (breaking A. J. Foyt's 217 MPH record in his Indycar the previous year) before pole qualifying; Donohue was killed ten days later during the Austrian Grand Prix. The 500 itself was scheduled for August 10 but was rained out until the 17th. Early in the race a six-car melee erupted and Lund was smashed through the driver side by another car; he succumbed to massive internal injuries. Dick Brooks then survived a furious tumble down the backstretch in the middle of the race. Buddy Baker held off Richard Petty at the stripe after 60 lead changes among 17 drivers.
- Champion Spark Plug 400 A six-car crash pierced the backstretch guardrail and stopped the race for half an hour. A late caution set off a five-lap shootout as Petty and Pearson fought for the lead; the lead changed on every lap before Petty drafted past Pearson for the win.[1]Cale Yarborough survived a spin after colliding with Dave Marcis and finished third; the two exchanged words after the race.
- Southern 500Bobby Allison, despite breaking a suspension piece in the final 50 laps, completed a season sweep at Darlington as he outlasted Richard Petty, who competed despite illness and heat, needing relief help from Dave Marcis.
- Delaware 500 Petty put the entire field two laps down, but with 150 to go a backmarker's blown engine sent debris under the STP Dodge and snapped a tie rod. Petty's crew needed eight laps to fix the problem and he restarted six laps behind Lennie Pond and Cale Yarborough. Pond fell out and Cale fell back; Petty kept lapping the field until he got back onto the lead lap; Buddy Arrington then came to a stop, necessitating a late yellow. Petty won handily and Dick Brooks finished second, upset because Arrington had purchased a transporter from Petty; said Brooks, 'I guess Arrington needed that truck paid for.'
- Old Dominion 500Richard Petty fell out with rearend failure and pole-sitter Cale Yarborough crashed after leading 272 laps. Darrell Waltrip led before blowing his engine and Dave Marcis took the win, his first Winston Cup win and the first for Harry Hyde's #71 Dodge since 1973.
- National 500Richard Petty broke out of a tight battle and led the final 111 laps for the sweep at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The win all but clinched his sixth Winston Cup Grand National title.
- Capital City 500Richard Petty broke a piston 34 laps in but still clinched his sixth title; the Petty Enterprises team had begun experimenting with new parts in anticipation of the 1976 season. Darrell Waltrip made up two laps to post his second win of 1975 and the first for DiGard Racing.
- Los Angeles Times 500Buddy Baker initially was not entered in NASCAR's season finale but Bud Moore had secured sponsorship from Norris Industries so Baker flew out to LA and led 148 laps, winning by 30 seconds over Pearson. Richard Petty led but fell out for the second straight year with engine failure; it was also his fourth DNF in his last seven races.
Final Points Standings[edit]
- Richard Petty – 4783
- Dave Marcis – 4061
- James Hylton – 3914
- Benny Parsons – 3820
- Richard Childress – 3818
- Cecil Gordon – 3702
- Darrell Waltrip – 3462
- Elmo Langley – 3399
- Cale Yarborough – 3295
- Dick Brooks – 3182
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'1975 Champion 400, MRN call'. Archived from the original on 2014-03-27. Retrieved 2014-03-26.
Race details | |||
---|---|---|---|
Race 2 of 30 in the 1975 NASCAR Winston Cup Series | |||
Track map of Daytona International Speedway showing mainly the speedway. | |||
Date | February 16, 1975 | ||
Location | Daytona International Speedway Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S. | ||
Course | Permanent racing facility 2.5 mi (4.023 km) | ||
Distance | 200 laps, 500 mi (804.672 km) | ||
Weather | Temperatures of 82.9 °F (28.3 °C); wind speeds of 13 miles per hour (21 km/h)[1] | ||
Average speed | 153.649 miles per hour (247.274 km/h) | ||
Pole position | |||
Driver | DiGard Motorsports | ||
Qualifying race winners | |||
Duel 1 Winner | Bobby Allison | Penske Racing | |
Duel 2 Winner | David Pearson | Wood Brothers Racing | |
Most laps led | |||
Driver | David Pearson | Wood Brothers Racing | |
Laps | 74 | ||
Winner | |||
No. 72 | Benny Parsons | L.G. DeWitt | |
Television in the United States | |||
Network | ABC's Wide World of Sports | ||
Announcers | Bill Flemming Jackie Stewart |
The 1975 Daytona 500, the 17th running of the event on February 16, 1975, was a race in the NASCARWinston Cup Series.
Race report[edit]
Nascar 1975 Race Videos
From the start, it appeared that David Pearson was on his way to his first Daytona 500 victory as he built a sizable lead on second place Benny Parsons late in the race. However, Richard Petty was eight laps behind the leaders on his way to finishing seventh, and Parsons hooked up in a draft and began reeling in Pearson who was slowed by lapped traffic. The key moment of the race occurred two laps from the end when contact with Cale Yarborough in traffic sent Pearson spinning on the backstretch. Parsons avoided the accident and went on to take the win.[2]
One of the things that set up that incident late in the race that cost David Pearson the race was the fact that Cale Yarborough was running on 7 cylinders. On the final restart, Cale was actually placed in front of the leaders, on the end of the lead lap, but the power deficit he was at resulted in the leaders actually lapping him in less than 25 laps. When Pearson caught up to Yarborough and Richie Panch, Yarborough was trying to slip in behind Pearson and simply misjudged it. Of course, another was the role Richard Petty played. Even in a two-car draft with Ramo Stott (who barely missed the massive lap 4 crash), Benny Parsons was losing about a half to three-quarters of a second per lap to Pearson, who was simply content to draft A.J. Foyt to the win, but Foyt dropped out with nine laps left while running third, not long after Petty got back onto the track after his final pit stop, and where he came out was a stroke of luck for Parsons and Stott, because he came out exactly where they were running.[2]
As per the list below, 26 of the 40 drivers failed to finish the race for various reasons, including a huge crash on the fourth lap, which took out nine cars, nearly one-quarter of the field.[2]
Nascar 1975 Results
West Coast ace Hershel McGriff's third and final Daytona 500 ends with a blown motor on lap 13. Bruce Jacobi would debut in this race, finishing in 12th place after qualifying in 39th place.[2]
Among those involved were famous country music singer Marty Robbins, who also crashed out of the 1973 Daytona 500.
At the time, it was the biggest crash in terms of the number of cars involved in race history. Donnie Allison started on the pole, but only led the first lap and was sidelined by mechanical problems, as was DiGard Racing teammate Johnny Rutherford, the reigning Indianapolis 500 champion. Another that failed to finish was Buddy Baker, who led 46 laps. As a result, a record-low 14 cars, including that of Pearson, were classified as running at the finish.[2]
None of the 40 cars in this year's Daytona 500 had a single-digit car number.[2]
Finishing order[edit]
- A. J. Foyt*
- Bob Burcham*
- Cecil Gordon*
- Coo Coo Marlin*
- Lennie Pond*
- Buddy Baker*
- David Sisco*
- Dick Brooks*
- Tommy Gale*
- George Follmer*
- Walter Ballard*
- Darrell Waltrip*
- Johnny Rutherford*
- Donnie Allison*
- Randy Tissot*
- Hershel McGriff*
- Rick Newsom*
- Bruce Hill*
- J. D. McDuffie*
- Joe Mihalic*
- Jim Vandiver*
- Dick Trickle*
- Grant Adcox*
- Dan Daughtry*
- Marty Robbins*
- Warren Tope*
Note: * denotes that the driver failed to finish the race.
Standings after the race[edit]
Pos | Driver | Points[2] | Differential |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Bobby Allison | 355 | 0 |
2 | David Pearson | 345 | -10 |
3 | Dave Marcis | 310 | -45 |
4 | Richard Petty | 302 | -53 |
5 | James Hylton | 284 | -71 |
6 | Cecil Gordon | 283 | -72 |
7 | Benny Parsons | 271 | -84 |
8 | Ed Negre | 259 | -96 |
9 | Richard Childress | 239 | -116 |
10 | Hershel McGriff | 207 | -148 |
References[edit]
- ^'Weather of the 1975 Daytona 500'. The Old Farmers' Almanac. Retrieved 2014-03-08.
- ^ abcdefg1975 Daytona 500 – Racing-Reference.info