Motorsport · 1979 · Daytona Beach, USA
The Fight That Launched NASCAR
Broadcast live, flag to flag, on national television for the first time, the Daytona 500 delivers a last-lap crash between the two leaders and a fistfight in the infield grass, all caught live on camera.
Richard Petty
Race winner
First flag-to-flag live national NASCAR TV
Broadcast
Final lap
Crash + fight
The 1979 Daytona 500 was the first 500-mile NASCAR race broadcast live from start to finish on national television, a gamble by CBS on a regional sport with an uncertain audience beyond the American South. Much of the East Coast was snowed in that weekend, leaving an unusually large captive television audience at home.
Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison were racing for the lead on the final lap when the two cars made contact and crashed together into the infield grass, handing the win to Richard Petty, who had been running well behind them. As the wrecked cars came to rest, Yarborough and Allison began arguing, and when Donnie's brother Bobby Allison stopped to check on them, a fistfight broke out between all three men, caught live by CBS's cameras.
The chaotic, unscripted finish, played out in front of the largest television audience the sport had ever reached, is widely credited with launching NASCAR's growth into a mainstream national sport rather than a regional curiosity, arriving at the exact moment television was watching closest.
Watch the Moment
