Race
The race started under the yellow flag for 15 laps due to wet conditions after overnight rain the night before the race. Donnie Allison lost control of his car on lap 32 (of 200 laps) and forced Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison to take evasive action. All three cars spun through the backstretch infield which was slippery and muddy after a morning rain. Yarborough was forced to repair his car, and fell two laps behind the leader.
Following the yellow the race swelled into a huge 18-car battle. Neil Bonnett, driving an Oldsmobile, raced into the lead but was soon challenged by Bobby Allison trying to unlap himself and rookie Dale Earnhardt. A six-car crash eliminated David Pearson and others, then Donnie Allison raced to unlap himself, and did so when Bonnett blew a tire and spun in traffic. Past halfway Donnie assumed the lead but Cale Yarborough used more cautions to make up his laps.
Read more about this topic: 1979 Daytona 500
Famous quotes containing the word race:
“Ye say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave;
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;
That, mid the forests where they roamed,
There rings no hunters’ shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.”
—Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791–1865)
“Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“It now appears that the negro race is, more than any other, susceptible of rapid civilization. The emancipation is observed, in the islands, to have wrought for the negro a benefit as sudden as when a thermometer is brought out of the shade into the sun. It has given him eyes and ears.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)