1970 Daytona 500

1970 Daytona 500

Race details
Race 4 of 48 in the 1970 NASCAR Grand National Series season
Track map of Daytona International Speedway showing mainly the speedway.
Date	February 22, 1970 (1970-02-22)
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 reaching up to 64.9 °F (18.3 °C); wind speeds approaching 10.1 miles per hour (16.3 km/h)
Average speed	149.601 miles per hour (240.759 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Cale Yarborough	Wood Brothers Racing
Most laps led
Driver	David Pearson	Holman Moody
Laps	82
Winner
No. 40	Pete Hamilton	Petty Enterprises
Television in the United States
Network	ABC's Wide World of Sports
Announcers	Keith Jackson Chris Economaki

The 1970 Daytona 500 was a NASCAR Grand National Series (now Sprint Cup Series) race held on February 22, 1970 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Summary

NASCAR's modern era would commence with this race. Winged Plymouth Superbirds made their grand debut. Pete Hamilton, hired by Petty Enterprises shortly before the season, won the race in the #40 Plymouth Superbird just three car lengths over David Pearson, after passing him with nine laps to go. It was the first win for the new Plymouth Superbird.

This race would last 200 minutes, with a proud audience of 103,800 people watching every minute of it. A grand total of 24 lead changes were made with an average green flag run of 22 laps. Exactly 23% of the race was held under a yellow flag; blown engines were the primary culprit behind the caution periods.

The race car drivers still had to commute to the races using the same stock cars that competed in a typical weekend's race through a policy of homologation (and under their own power). This policy was in effect until roughly 1975. By 1980, NASCAR had completely stopped tracking the year model of all the vehicles and most teams did not take stock cars to the track under their own power anymore.