On February 17th, the 50th running of the Daytona 500 will take place in Daytona Beach, Florida. The Daytona 500 is basically to stock car racing as the Super Bowl is to professional football. It’s the most important race of the year and it’s the one race every racer would love to win. To be considered great, you need a Daytona 500 win on your resume, otherwise you never climbed the sport’s biggest mountain.
Also known as The Great American Race, the Daytona 500 dates all the way back to 1959 when the first Daytona 500 was held. The winner of the first Daytona 500 was stock car legend Lee Petty. One of the first superstars in the sport, current superstar Richard Petty is his son. Lee Petty was also a co-founder of Petty Enterprises, which is one of the most successful racing teams in history.
For winning the first Daytona 500, Petty was rewarded prize of approximately $20,000. Petty, who won the race in an Oldsmobile, led 38 laps of the race. Although that was the first and only Daytona 500 victory for him, his son Richard has seven Daytona 500 victories to his name.
Although 1959 marked the first time the Daytona 500 was held, the true history of the race dates back even further. Going all the way back to 1902, two competitors raced at what was then a speedy 57 MPH. The 1902 race sparked heavy racing interest in the area. By 1910, the area was holding an annual Speed Carnival that attracted thousands of spectators each year.
The Speed Carnival was held every year from 1910 to 1936. Back then, if you were any type of racer, you made it to the Speed Carnival. If a car was trying to get recognition as a powerful and fast car, it had to prove itself in Daytona. Over the years, the speed of the cars increased. By the early-1930’s, cars were traveling close to 300 MPH.
In 1936, the area in which the Speed Carnival was held was renamed the Daytona International Speedway. Around this time in history, a lot of cars that were raced were everyday cars. If you had a car that you used to get around town, that car would be eligible to race on the Daytona Speedway. It was only later that everyday cars were phased out and specialty cars were brought in.
While NASCAR (stock car racing) is healthy and alive today, it wasn’t always a flourishing sport. In fact from 1939 until 1959, there was a bit of a lull in the interest level of the general public. A lot of that could be blamed on World War II, however a lot of that blame can also be pinned on how the racing industry was run at the time. It wasn’t as nearly as efficiently and effectively run as it is today.
However, by 1959 the sport began to really take off again. And with the running of the first Daytona 500, that turned out to be a key point in stock car racing history. It didn’t take long before everyone looked at the Daytona 500 as the most important race of the year.
In the second year of the Daytona 500, Junior Johnson was the winner of the race. Johnson was originally a moonshiner who later got famous in the racing industry. Although it was Johnson’s one and only win at the Dayton 500, he did win approximately 50 other races in his racing career.
The first of seven Daytona 500 races that Richard Petty won came in 1964. Petty, who was driving a Plymouth, led 184 laps of the race. The 184 laps led was a record at the time and it’s still a record to this day. Petty’s dominating performance was not only shocking, it was his official introduction as a superstar in the racing community.
Petty would go on to win the Daytona 500 in a Plymouth in both 1966 and 1971. During that era is when other true racing legends were born. In 1967, Mario Andretti won the Daytona 500. Andretti, who was 27-years-old at the time, went on to have one of the better all-around racing careers in history.
In 1968, Cale Yarborough won the Daytona 500 in a Mercury. He led 76 laps of the race and was rewarded with $47,250 for the win. Yarborough, who was 27-years-old at the time, was just getting his feet wet on the national stage. Yarborough went on to win a total of four Daytona 500 races. In addition to his victory in 1968, he also won in 1977, 1983 and 1984. His back-to-back victories in 1983 and 1984 marked only the second time in the history of the Daytona 500 that a racer had this race in consecutive years.
The first racer to win back-to-back Daytona 500’s was who else but Richard Petty. Petty won the Daytona 500 in 1973 and 1974. While he had previously raced in a Plymouth, these back-to-back victories took place in a Dodge. The wins marked the fourth and fifth Daytona 500 victories in Petty’s career.
Petty’s final two victories were in 1979 and 1981. In 1979, Petty won in an Oldsmobile after leading in only 12 laps of the race. For winning the 1979 Daytona 500, he took home a then record $73,900. The previous record for highest prize was $63,700 when Yarborough one the 1977 race. In 1981, Petty won his final Daytona 500 in a Buick. For that win, he won $90,575 or about five times more than his father won for winning the inaugural Daytona 500.
Although early superstars like Yarborough and Petty built up the Daytona 500, they missed out on the big paydays. The first race to payout $200,000, or more than ten times the amount of the inaugural race, was the 1987 race. That Daytona 500 was won by Bill Elliott. Elliott, who was a two-time Daytona 500 winner, was driving a Ford and won from the pole position.
Sterling Martin became the only other racer besides Petty and Yarborough to win back-to-back Daytona 500’s when he won the 1994 and 1995 events. When he won the 1994 event, his prize of $258,275 was more the first time the prize was worth more than a quarter of a million dollars. The next year, Martin won $300,460. In the mid-90’s is when the Daytona 500 started to really explode in popularity. The hard work and that all the NASCAR legends had put into the race was really starting to pay off.
In 1997, Jeff Gordon won the Daytona and took home $377,410. Over the course of the next year, the Daytona 500 had its biggest ever jump in popularity. Part of the reason was due to the exposure garnered by Gordon, who was the race’s youngest winner. Gordon fan friendly personality and movie star good looks had a record number of people tuning in for the 1998 race.
The 1998 Daytona 500 was the race that was the real turning point. With legend Dale Earnhardt winning a thrilling race, he took home a staggering $1,059,805 for the win. That prize was nearly three times larger than any other amount in the history of the race. From then on, every prize of the Daytona 500 has been at least one million dollars and the mainstream media has given the Daytona 500 the respect it has earned over the years.
Last year, Kevin Harvick won the Daytona 500 and took home a record $1,510,469. Be sure to watch this season to see who can call themselves the winner of the biggest race of the year!
