Official name West Virginia 500 | ||
Date August 8, 1971; 45 years ago (1971-08-08) Location International Raceway Park, Ona, West Virginia Course Permanent racing facility
0.455 mi (0.732 km) Distance 500 laps, 227.5 mi (366.1 km) Weather Temperatures reaching a high of 80.1 °F (26.7 °C); wind speeds reaching a maximum of 4.1 miles per hour (6.6 km/h) | ||
The 1971 West Virginia 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that took place on August 8, 1971, at International Raceway Park (Ona, West Virginia).
Contents
The race car drivers still had to commute to the races using the same stock cars that competed in a typical weekend's race through a policy of homologation (and under their own power). This policy was in effect until roughly 1975. By 1980, NASCAR had completely stopped tracking the year model of all the vehicles and most teams did not take stock cars to the track under their own power any more.
Summary
Five hundred laps took place on a paved oval track spanning 0.455 miles (0.732 km).
The total time of the race was two hours and fifty-seven minutes. The average speed of the race was 83.805 miles per hour (134.871 km/h) while the qualifying speed for the pole position was 84.053 miles per hour (135.270 km/h). Ten thousand people would attend the live race to see Richard Petty defeat Bobby Allison by more than two laps. There was a grid of 32 competitors. Jerry Churchill decided to quit the race after the first lap; giving him a meager $300 paycheck ($1,774.12 in current US dollars). Bill Shirey would also quit on lap 31; earning the same amount that Churchill did. Bill Seifert would leave the race on lap 187 due to a legitimate illness.
No replacement was found and he brought home $330 from his hard day of racing ($1,951.53 in today's American dollars).
Finishing order
* Driver failed to finish race
† signifies that the driver is known to be deceased