[Racer Duck]

I ran across this article about a race that set a record. I've slightly edited the article so dates aren't apparent and rearranged the order so things are somewhat sequential. With a little research you ought to be able to figure out when it was. But this race was special. There was a record set that has never been equaled. What is that record?

Before the race had even started, Junior Johnson was fined $500 when NASCAR inspectors found a locked rear end on his Ford. NASCAR allowed Johnson to start the race after making changes.

On the first lap, Johnson, who started on the pole, burned out a distributor wire. While his car was in the pits, Johnson stalked off. He didn't return to the race, finished last out of 44 cars and later declared, "I'm not paying no $500 fine."

The race was marred by several bad wrecks, one of them hospitalizing Buren Skeen. Skeen's accident occured on the second lap when he spun between the third and fourth turns and was broadsided by Reb Wickersham and Burt Robbins. Torches had to be used to cut away part of the car's body to enable rescuers to take Skeen out of the car.

In one of the most spectacular accidents of the day, Cale Yarborough tangled with Sam McQuagg and Yarborough's Ford went airborne between Turns 1 and 2 and sailed over the guardrail and down the embankment. Cale got out, climbed the bank back to the track and waved his arms to let the 50,000 fans at the race know he was fine.

Ned Jarrett, who led a total of 62 laps, took home the winner's trophy.

Fred Lorenzen, driving a Ford, took the early lead but seemed to slow his pace down as Darel Dieringer went into the lead for the first time on the 33rd lap.

From then until the 325th lap, Dieringer was the dominant figure of the race. He led the field six different times and at least twice stretched his lead over the second place man to half a lap.

Jarrett managed to stay in contention most of the day but things looked hopeless for him with 44 laps left as Lorenzen and Dieringer waged a hot duel for the victory.

After pitting on the 321st lap, Dieringer was back on the track but his car was spouting fire. He pitted again to extinguish the fire and once more re-entered the race. This time he scraped the rail but managed to stay in the race.

But, in a sudden twist, Lorenzen let out a big puff of smoke on the 325th lap and was forced to the sidelines.

Even before Lorenzen had reached his pit area, Dieringer started smoking badly and, although he stayed in the race, never seriously contended as 50,000 fans watched on a mild afternoon.

Meanwhile, Buddy Baker was picking up valuable laps even though he blew two tires in the process.

DURING THOSE last dramatic laps, Dieringer tried valiantly to hang on and finish second but his Mercury finally completely failed on the 352nd lap with rear end trouble.

Behind Jarrett's Ford was Baker in a hemi-powered Plymouth which had been started by his father, Buck.

Despite being on the sidelines at the finish, Dieringer finished third in his Bud Moore Mercury, Roy Mayne was fourth in a Chevrolet and Buddy Arrington , fifth in a Dodge.

Jarrett was the lone factory Ford finishing the race as numerous wrecks and mechanical troubles sidelined most of the name drivers.

ALTHOUGH FORDS were heavily favored, it was not an all-Ford show. Dieringer, in his Mercury, led 199 laps and High Point's Jim Paschal kept his Chevrolet much in contention until a blown head gasket forced him out after 230 laps.

Paschal ran with the leaders all day and led the race on three different occasions. The race was even paced once by Bobby Johns' Pontiac.

THE DRIVERS gave the fans one of their best super speedway shows of the year as the lead exchanged hands 22 times. Eight different drivers shared in the lead - Lorenzen, Dieringer, Earl Balmer, Johns, Paschal, Yarborough, McQuagg and Jarrett.

[Quality88]

If it's what I think it is, then I started a thread askin the question(long time ago), so I believe it will be the largest margin of victory at 14 laps by "Gemtlemen" Ned Jarrett.

[Bob Tanner]

I know the answer to this one, Duck, but I'll let someone else do some digging.

A few other things about the race:
Buddy Baker didn't start the race, but rather took over for another driver.
Jarrett was driving the only factory-backed car to finish the race.
This race was my personal favourite (Curtis Turner) driver's return to NASCAR after being blackballed for four years.

[Racer Duck]

Can't fool you guys!

You're both right!

(Buddy took over for his dad.)

The race was the 1965 Southern 500 at Darlington. The track was only 1.375 miles back then, but "improvements" have shortened it to it's 1.366 length today.

An interesting fact concerning Darlington: the very first Southern 500 (1950) was won by Johnny Mantz by a margin of 9 laps over Fireball Roberts. So the Southern 500 at Darlington started off with being (almost) "too hard to tame" with it's very first race! It took almost 6 hours and 40 minutes to run! (they must have taken a lunch break, ya reckon?)

Back in '50 the track was listed as being only a mile and a quarter.

[LSC9901]

Originally Posted by Racer Duck

Can't fool you guys!

You're both right!

(Buddy took over for his dad.)

The race was the 1965 Southern 500 at Darlington. The track was only 1.375 miles back then, but "improvements" have shortened it to it's 1.366 length today.

An interesting fact concerning Darlington: the very first Southern 500 (1950) was won by Johnny Mantz by a margin of 9 laps over Fireball Roberts. So the Southern 500 at Darlington started off with being (almost) "too hard to tame" with it's very first race! It took almost 6 hours and 40 minutes to run! (they must have taken a lunch break, ya reckon?)

Back in '50 the track was listed as being only a mile and a quarter.

Well come on Ducky .. they didn't have all that GPS stuff back then so they just guessed !!!

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by LSC9901

Well come on Ducky .. they didn't have all that GPS stuff back then so they just guessed !!!

nope .. they used that silly little wheel on the end of a stick!