It?s 58 days until the 2017 Daytona 500 Live Stream is televised live on FOX, bringing to mind the unusual history of the No. 58 in NASCAR?s Premier Series.That happened on June 16, 1962, when little-known (then and now) Johnny Allen took his No. 58 Pontiac to Victory Lane in the Myers Brothers 200 at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Event: Nascar Daytona 500 Live Stream
Date & Time: Sunday, February 26 at 2:00pm ET
Place: Daytona Beach, Florida, United States
Nascar Daytona 500 Live Stream
A total of just 133 starts have been made across the history of NASCAR in the obviously unpopular car number, including 12 by Ricky Craven and two by Tiny Lund. Virtually all of the rest of the starts have been made by drivers long forgotten or never really remembered in the first place by the NASCAR community.
Allen?s lone victory ? not only in the car number,Daytona 500 Live but of his career ? came against a stacked field. Rex White finished second in the race and Richard Petty was third, while Joe Weatherly placed fifth and Wendell Scott was sixth. White, Petty, Weatherly and Scott all are now members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.Allen led 178 of 200 laps in earning the victory, and took home first-place race winnings of $580 for his efforts.To say Dale Earnhardt Jr. is pumped about his New Year?s Eve wedding is an understatement.The winner of NASCAR?s Most Popular Driver award the last 14 years in a row took to Twitter and said he told his bride-to-be, the lovely Amy Reimann, that the best way he can describe how he feels about marrying her is that this ?Saturday is the Daytona 500 and I know already I?m going to win it.
It?s 59 days until the 2017 Daytona 500 that will be televised live on FOX, and time to reflect on the very first 500 that was run at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 22, 1959.True to NASCAR form, it was embroiled in controversy from the start of the race until nearly three days after its completion.The drivers were concerned because none of them in the 64-car field ? which included future NASCAR Hall of Famers Junior Johnson, Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts and Lee Petty ? had ever exceeded 140 miles per hour in a race. In this one, they knew they would be going much faster. And it wouldn?t be long before they figured out how to go even faster thanks to the wonders of aerodynamic drafting.
With 15 laps remaining, it came down to a bumper-to-bumper duel between Petty and Johnny Beauchamp. They exchanged the lead five times over the next 14 laps before Petty moved in front just before taking the white flag that signified one lap to go.As they came around the track a final time, they encountered the ornery Joe Weatherly, who would not get out of their way even though he was two laps down and had no chance of winning the race himself.The three cars tore around Turn 4 and charged into the 2.5-mile track?s unique tri-oval with Weatherly?s No. 48 Chevrolet slightly in front of Petty?s No. 42 Oldsmobile and Beauchamp?s No. 73 Thunderbird.
As they barreled toward the finish, Beauchamp slipped to Daytona 2017 Live Stream the inside and attempted what would later come to be known as a classic slingshot pass. The three cars crossed the finish line almost simultaneously ? and confusion reigned immediately after the checkered flag was thrown for the first time at Daytona International Speedway.Johnny Bruner, the official starter, decalared Beauchamp the winner. Big Bill France, the head of NASCAR at the time, agreed with him. But in a poll of 12 newsmen who had been watching, Petty was the unanimous choice as the victor in this era of hand-held scoring, long before electronic scoring would remove the possibility of human error from the equation.
As Beauchamp made his way to Victory Lane, Petty became increasingly angry that he had not been awarded the win. A smiling Beauchamp was photographed with one arm thrown around a 3-foot-high trophy and his other around a Daytona beauty queen ? unaware that Petty already was campaigning furiously to have France change his mind and rule him the winner instead.
Petty stuck around Daytona Beach for three days after the race, pleading his case to anyone who would listen.France finally did. He called Petty on the phone 61 hours after completion of the race and declared Petty the winner.?Let?s face it,? car owner Pete DePaolo, a former Indianapolis 500 winner himself, told reporters after the announcement. ?Hollywood would have rejected a race script like this as too unbelievable.?It?s 64 days until the 2017 Daytona 500 will be televised live on FOX, and therefore time to reflect back on the 1964 Daytona 500.It was the first of a record seven 500s that Hall of Famer Richard Petty would win, as he dominated in his No. 43 ?64 Plymouth featuring a Hemi engine that would be allowed by NASCAR a year later.It would help springboard Petty to the first of his seven championships in the NASCAR Premier Series, which recently took on its latest name ? the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Petty?s seven championships remain tied with current driver Jimmie Johnson and the late Dale Earnhardt for the most of all time.Petty led 184 of 200 laps en route to the win, pocketing $33,300 ? then a staggering amount ? for his victory.He did not return to defend his race win the following season, sitting out not only the 1965 Daytona 500 Live Online but also the 33 races of the ?65 season in protest after NASCAR outlawed the Hemi engine.
But in ?64, he was only beginning to enjoy its benefits. He would go on to win eight more races, and finished in the top 10 in 43 of 61 starts back in an era when oft-failing equipment made finishing races far more difficult than it is today.Richard Petty had dominated the 1964 season with his Chrysler Hemi engine, and the Ford Motor Co. wanted to come back the following year with a new engine that featured high-rise cylinder heads that would allow it to compete with the Hemi.When the rules changes outlawed both the Hemi and the high-rise cylinder heads, Ford threatened to pull out of the sport. But Big Bill France did not flinch and stood firm. He did not allow either ? and Ford blinked first, accepting the rules changes and staying in the sport.
Petty, the defending race winner and series champion, did not even race in the ?65 500 as a result and, in fact, went on to sit out the first 33 races of the 55-race season in protest.
Lorenzen rewarded Ford handsomely for sticking with him, but the victory did not come easily.At the halfway point of the race, Marvin Panch was in the lead and the skies around the track were darkening. Lorenzen passed Panch on Lap 119 ? but as the rain began to fall 10 laps later, Panch made a run at Lorenzen coming off Turn 2.
Panch went to the outside, Lorenzen moved up to block him, and the two cars touched ? sending Panch spinning. Lorenzen remained in the lead but the fender that hit Panch?s car was bent in and rubbing against his tire. Lorenzen wanted to come to pit road to get the fender pulled out, but his crew chief, Herb Nab, suspected heavy rain was about to hit.?Stay out!? he ordered Lorenzen, who did. By Lap 133, it was pouring and the rest, as they say, is history.It was the only Daytona 500 victory of Lorenzen?s Hall of Fame career, which included 26 total wins in just 129 starts before he retired for a first time at only 33 years of age in 1967. He returned in 1970 and competed part-time in the NASCAR Premier Series until 1972, but never won another Daytona 500 Live Stream race before retiring for good.
