By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service
Today marks the eve of the 67th running of the Great American Race. Only once has a driver won the DAYTONA 500 in a car bearing the No. 1—Jamie McMurray during his 2010 banner year with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing—but the number nevertheless figures prominently in the history of NASCAR’s biggest race. In 1979, during the first live flag-to-flag coverage of a NASCAR Cup race on national television, Donnie Allison led 93 laps in Hoss Ellington’s No. 1 Oldsmobile. Allison took the white flag in the lead before he and Cale Yarborough wrecked on the backstretch while fighting for the top spot, handing the win to Richard Petty. The action on the track and the fistfight that followed—with Donnie and Bobby Allison battling Yarborough—put NASCAR racing on the map.
Tune-in to the 2025 DAYTONA 500 on Sunday, February 16 at 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
