Official name Texas 400 | ||
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Date June 9, 1979 (1979-June-09) Location Texas World Speedway, College Station, Texas Course Permanent racing facility
2.000 mi (3.218 km) Distance 250 laps, 500 mi (804 km) Weather Hot with temperatures approaching 90 °F (32 °C); wind speeds up to 11.8 miles per hour (19.0 km/h) | ||
The 1979 Texas 400 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series (now Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series) race that took place on June 3, 1979, at Texas World Speedway in College Station, Texas.
Contents
By the following season, 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 anymore. Only manual transmission vehicles were allowed to participate in this race; a policy that NASCAR has retained to the present day.
Summary
Two hundred laps took place on an oval track spanning 2.0 miles (3.2 km). Darrell Waltrip won the race; beating Bobby Allison by 60 seconds. Eleven thousand and five hundred fans would attend this live race with lasted more than two hours and thirty-three minutes.
Waltrip's overall speed for the race was 156.216 miles per hour (251.405 km/h) while Buddy Baker achieved the pole position for the race with a speed of 167.903 miles per hour (270.214 km/h). Total winnings for this race were $161,250 ($532,102.82 when considering inflation); Darrell would receive $21,750 of the total purse ($71,772.01 when considering inflation). Dale Earnhardt was Waltrip's top challenger before he crashed late in the race.
Some of the more notable names to make an appearance here were: Dale Earnhardt, Richard Childress, Cale Yarborough, Terry Labonte, Richard Petty, and J. D. McDuffie. While Jim Hurlbert and John Rezek would make their NASCAR Cup Series debut, Billy Hagan would make his grand exit after this race along with three other drivers. Bill Meazel would make his only NASCAR appearance during this event.
Finishing order
† signifies that the driver is known to be deceased
* Driver failed to finish race