Daytona's annual Firecracker 400 in 1974 was scheduled as it had been since the first one in 1959: on the 4th of July. Regardless of the day of the week on which the 4th fell, the Firecracker began at 10 AM on Independence Day. In 1974, the race was run on a Thursday morning.
- Bobby Allison, 1
- David Pearson, 4 in only nine starts
- Richard Petty, 5
- Cale Yarborough, 6
The race included the normal cast of NASCAR regulars. In addition to them, two USAC regulars - A.J. Foyt and Johnny Rutherford - joined the fray. Rutherford was making his second of three NASCAR starts in 1973.. He won the Indianapolis 500 six weeks before the Firecracker and the Schaefer 500 at Pocono few days earlier.
The competition was intense all day long. Bobby Allison launched from his front row starting spot to lead lap 1. Buddy Baker in Bud Moore's Ford then led laps 2 and 3. Bobby decided he liked the look of the top spot, and he went back in the lead for another couple of laps. And so it continued all morning.
Rutherford brought out the first caution after losing an engine and spinning in his own oil.
Source: Daytona Beach Morning Journal via Google News Archive |
Source: Spokesman Review via Google News Archive |
With about 15 laps to go, Pearson took the lead from Baker and brought Petty with him in the draft. The two titans and career rivals then began to pull away from Baker and Cale Yarborough.
Immediately after Pearson took the white flag, he slowed dramatically and pulled to the inside. Petty kept his foot on the floorboard, swept around the Wood Brothers Mercury, and pulled a sizable lead down the backstretch.
Many sensed Pearson's car had dropped a cylinder or cut a tire. Instead, he simply lagged a bit and showed no signs of a developing engine or tire problem. As the two barreled through turns three and four, Pearson closed the gap he intentionally had opened. Then coming through the tri-oval, Pearson used the draft to sling-shot past Petty for the win.
Source: Southern Illinoisan |
Lost perhaps a bit at the time because of the Petty-Pearson battle was the race for third. Baker and Cale raced side by side much of the last lap - though they trailed the first two by a quarter to half a lap. As the two headed for the stripe, Baker's Ford was on the outside with Cale's Junior Johnson Chevy to his inside. Cale leveraged the draft to pull even with Baker. At the stripe, however, the two literally tied. Had today's technology been available then, it's possible NASCAR could have determined who finished ahead of whom. With the cameras and scoring technologies available, however, no one could determine who got the edge. The tie remains the only one in the NASCAR history books.
Source: Daytona USA by William Neely |
Petty was physically hot from having just raced 400 miles on a Florida summer morning. He was also hot at having been snookered by Pearson in the way that he did and likely for having finished second in the race for the fourth consecutive year.
Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal |
Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal |
Note that Pearson is wearing two different hats during the trophy presentation - one for his main sponsor (Purolater) and one for the tyre sponsors (Goodyear).
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