1972 American 500


The 1972 American 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event held on October 22, 1972, at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham, North Carolina. While not televised, the 1972 American 500 was covered by local radio stations WAYN-AM and WEEB-AM.
Most of the passenger cars were built in America back in 1972 and were built almost exactly to the specifications found in early-1970s NASCAR Cup Series vehicles. People had a tendency to transfer the pride and loyalty of their chosen vehicle manufacturer into their favorite stock car driver. With the growing U.S. environmentalist movement of the 1970s, smog controls were started to be mandated in passenger vehicles. This would create a reasonable performance gap between the passenger vehicles and the stock car vehicles that would become pronounced by the late-1970s.

Race report

An impressive lineup of 40 American-born drivers managed to qualify for the race. Drivers who failed to qualify were David Ray Boggs, Jimmy Crawford and Elmo Langley. Forty-two thousand people would become enthralled by the drivers going up to in this 253-minute racing event. David Pearson's impressive qualifying speed of got him close and personal with the pole position. Four cautions were given for a duration of 35 laps where 20 different drivers managed to gain the honor of leading the race. Bobby Allison would defeat Richard Petty by out-lapping him twice; resulting in Richard Petty's 100th runner up finish.
Unfortunately, Allison's "Joe DiMaggio Streak" would not last after this race; no driver has ever attempted for this race after this race. Ron Hutcherson was the last-place finisher of this event; with a racing accident costing him a chance to win the event on lap 29 out of 492. Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, and David Pearson managed to dominate the closing laps of this race. Pete Hamilton scores his final top-5 finish. This was his final start of 1972 and he would only make two further starts in 1973, both of which ended in DNFs
Hutcherson's racing career would last throughout the course of the 1970s; ending only after the 1979 running of the World 600. Notable crew chiefs for this race were Harry Hyde, Dale Inman, Tom Vandiver, Vic Ballard, and Herb Nab.
Rewards for this racing event started off at $19,400 for the winner while the last-place finisher was lucky to bring home $550. A grand total of $89,450 was offered to the race by the treasurers of NASCAR.
Bobby Allison's win at this event would become the tenth win of the 1972 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season. Due to the cash crunch of the 1970s, only five individual owners could afford to employ a NASCAR Cup Series driver for the rest; the rest were all "proper" NASCAR teams with more than one person running them.
Only manual transmission vehicles were allowed to participate in this race; a policy that NASCAR has retained to the present day.

Qualifying

Finishing order

  1. Bobby Allison
  2. Richard Petty
  3. Buddy Baker
  4. David Pearson
  5. Pete Hamilton
  6. Cale Yarborough
  7. Dave Marcis
  8. Larry Smith
  9. David Sisco
  10. Buddy Arrington
  11. John Sears
  12. Clarence Lovell
  13. Elmo Langley
  14. Ben Arnold
  15. Walter Ballard
  16. Dean Dalton
  17. Ed Negre
  18. Charlie Roberts
  19. James Hylton
  20. Cecil Gordon
  21. Joe Frasson
  22. Raymond Williams
  23. Jabe Thomas
  24. J.D. McDuffie
  25. Frank Warren
  26. Marty Robbins
  27. Coo Coo Marlin
  28. Bill Champion
  29. Roy Mayne
  30. Jim Vandiver
  31. Neil Castles
  32. Bill Dennis
  33. Ron Keselowski
  34. Dick Brooks
  35. Benny Parsons
  36. Bobby Isaac
  37. Henley Gray
  38. Tiny Lund
  39. Tommy Gale
  40. Ron Hutcherson

    Timeline

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