u/GoodOlRoll

The reason why Petty went to Ford was because Petty had wanted to drive one of the new 1969 Dodge Charger 500s due to the superior aerodynamics, but Chrysler wanted to keep him in a Plymouth, which was at the time considerably less slippery. So Petty went over to Ford for a year, but ultimately went back to Plymouth for the 1970 season.

Smokey was asked to run Fords in 1969 by Bunkie Knudsen, who was hired on as President of Ford Motor Company in February of 1968. After butting heads with the likes of Lee Iacocca and Henry Ford II, Bunkie was fired from Ford in September of 1969, and after that Smokey had no reason to keep running Fords. After 1969, he never entered a car in NASCAR again.

Of the 10 races Petty won during the 1969 season, 9 of them were won in Ford Torinos, as the season had started in late 1968 when he was still running Plymouths. He finished 2nd in the final standings to David Pearson, who tied Lee Petty for the most Grand National Championships at 3.

Smokey only fielded a car in 5 races in '69, including the 2nd Daytona 500 qualifying race. Bobby Unser, Swede Savage, Joe Leonard and Charlie Glotzbach were the drivers.

Elliott averaged 186.288mph in the '85 Winston 500, a record that wouldn't be surpassed until Mark Martin averaged 188.354mph in the 1997 running of the very same race. Martin still holds the record today.

However, Yarborough's pace in the 1970 125 still stands as NASCAR's fastest race at Daytona.

In the 500, Yarborough started on the pole and was leading over David Pearson when his engine gave out, relegating him to a 37th place finish. Pete Hamilton went on to win the race.

McDuffie won the pole for the 1978 Delaware 500 and led 10 laps with the McCrearys, but the tires' performance fell off very quickly. After completing 80 laps, McDuffie's engine blew a piston, relegating him to a 33rd place finish. Bobby Allison went on to win the race.

Scoring the pole here also qualified McDuffie for the first ever Busch Clash in 1979, where he started 5th but unfortunately he had engine troubles after completing 17/20 laps. Buddy Baker took the checkered flag that day.

McDuffie's pole was recently highlighted by u/DarthVader1701A in a post 4 months ago, so credit where credit is due, he beat me to it lol. I just found it interesting that McDuffie wasn't running Goodyears and was hoping to highlight that.

Bobby started 16th and completed 3 laps before a blown engine relegated him to a 43rd place finish out of 44 cars. Marvin Panch was the winner.

I believe this may have been taken shortly before the 1979 Los Angeles Times 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway.

In the race itself, Petty started 5th, led 6 laps, and finished 5th while Waltrip started 10th, led 2 laps and finished a lap down in 8th. Benny Parsons won the race, with Petty winning the title by just 11 points over Waltrip.

Petty started 13th and led 17 laps on his way to the win, with Buddy Baker finishing 2nd after leading 118 laps.

Foyt won the pole, led 132/200 laps and won the race. Petty started 3rd, led 17 laps and finished 1 lap down in 4th.

I could be wrong, but I think this was Cale's first race driving for Junior Johnson.

Cale started 8th and completed 83 laps before a blown transmission forced him out of the race. He finished 24th and Mark Donohue won in Roger Penske's AMC Matador.

Both cars got going again with Allison in the lead, but Petty got by him on the last lap. Petty led 160 laps and Allison led 239. Afterwards, a drunk Allison fan tried to fight Richard, but his brother Maurice defended Richard by using his helmet and the man backed off.

Parsons started 13th but his engine blew a little over halfway into the race which relegated him to a 30th place finish. Richard Petty was the winner.

Donnie's car bore the same color scheme as Bobby's Coke Machine. Donnie started 6th, led 11 laps and finished 5th. Bobby was the winner.

Tyner was the only driver who ran a Pontiac Grand Prix in 1969 and 1970. The car was nicknamed "Roy's Limousine" due to features such as a tilt steering column and power quarter windows. Tyner qualified 10th and finished 8th here.

Hylton qualified 3rd and led 160 of 500 laps on his way to the win. He was a serious threat for the championship throughout most of 1970 despite being an independent.

Credit for the picture goes to Christopher Pasatieri.

This was the first superspeedway race to be held at night, and was meant to be held on July 4th as the 17th race of the season, but concerns about the 1998 Florida Wildfires pushed it back to October 17th, making it the 30th race.

Earnhardt started 5th, led 41 laps, and finished 10th. Jeff Gordon was the winner.

To celebrate Winston's final year in the sport, NASCAR honored every driver who won the Cup Series championship during Winston's tenure from 1971-2003.

Both men had the best seasons of their careers in 1977, and for both men 1978 was a strong runner-up.

Yarborough scored 10 wins, 23 top 5s, 24 top 10s and 8 poles. He led 3,587 laps, his average start was 3.6 and his average finish was 6.0 despite 2 DNFs. He won his third straight championship with 4,841 points.

Parsons scored 3 wins, 15 top 5s, 21 top 10s and 2 poles. He led 824 laps, his average start was 4.7 and his average finish 9.4 despite 4 DNFs. He finished 4th in the standings with 4,350 points, just 17 behind 2nd place Bobby Allison, 12 behind 3rd place Darrell Waltrip and 15 ahead of 5th place Dave Marcis.

I wanted to post this mainly because their paint schemes were almost the same in '78.

Hensley started 10th but ignition troubles relegated him to a 24th place finish. Dale Earnhardt won the race.

At this time, NASCAR had mandated different-sized restrictor plates for the engines. The size of the plates varied based on multiple factors, including the displacement and the combustion chamber.

As such, the Hemi-headed Boss 429 was at quite the disadvantage, so Ford teams started looking at alternative engines to run instead. One of those engines was the 429 Wedge.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe the Wedge 429 was used for very long, as the 427 Tunnel Port proved to be very competitive under the new rules which gave way to its resurgence amongst the Ford camp.

Kyle was running one of Richard's leftover Dodge Magnums from the 1978 season, as Richard had switched over to General Motors before the '78 season concluded and was running an Oldsmobile 442 in this race.

Kyle started 18th and finished 7 laps down in 9th. Darrell Waltrip won the race.

Isaac made 47 starts and scored 11 wins, 32 top 5s, 38 top 10s, 13 poles, an average finish of 6.8 and he led 3,179 laps en route to winning the championship. He scored 3,911 points.

Allison made 46 starts and scored 3 wins, 30 top 5s, 35 top 10s, 5 poles, an average finish of 6.8 and he led 1,272 laps. He finished 2nd in the standings with 3,860 points, 51 behind Isaac.

Hylton made 47 starts and scored 1 win, 32 top 5s, 39 top 10s, 1 pole, an average finish of 8.1 and he led 199 laps. He finished 3rd in the standings with 3,788 points, 72 behind Allison and 123 behind Isaac.

While Isaac's and Allison's teams had factory backing in 1970, Hylton was running as an independent. Despite this disadvantage, he remained a threat for the championship until a wreck at Charlotte in October took him out of contention.

Back in these days, a driver could only enter a maximum of 47 races out of the 48 race schedule, as the twin 125s at Daytona counted towards the points standings.