1971 West Virginia 500
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| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 35 of 48 in the 1971 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season | |||
| Date | August 8, 1971 | ||
| Official name | West Virginia 500 | ||
| Location | International Raceway Park, Ona, West Virginia | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 0.732 km (0.455 miles) | ||
| Distance | 500 laps, 227.5 mi (366.1 km) | ||
| Weather | Temperatures of 80.1 °F (26.7 °C); wind speeds of 4.1 miles per hour (6.6 km/h)[1] | ||
| Average speed | 83.805 miles per hour (134.871 km/h) | ||
| Attendance | 10,000[2] | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Melvin Joseph | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Richard Petty | Petty Enterprises | |
| Laps | 279 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 43 | Richard Petty | Petty Enterprises | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | untelevised | ||
| Announcers | none | ||
The 1971 West Virginia 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that took place on August 8, 1971, at International Raceway Park in Ona, West Virginia.[2][3]
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.
Qualifying
Five hundred laps took place on a paved oval track spanning 0.455 miles (0.732 km).[2][3] The total time of the race was two hours and fifty-seven minutes.[2] 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).[2] Ten thousand people would attend the live race to see Richard Petty defeat Bobby Allison by more than two laps.[2][4] It was quite the battle between Petty and Allison during the course of the race. Petty beat on Allison all night and at one point pinned Allison against the wall so hard that both cars came to a stop.[2][4] There was a grid of 32 competitors;[2] only 14 of them were counted as finishing the race.[5]
Notable crew chiefs to participate in this race were Dale Inman, Vic Ballard, and Lee Gordon.[6]
Jerry Churchill decided to quit the race after the first lap; giving him a meager $300 paycheck ($2,329 in current US dollars).[2][3][4] Bill Shirey would also quit on lap 31; earning the same amount that Churchill did.[2][3] Bill Seifert would leave the race on lap 187 due to a legitimate illness brought on by dehydration in the West Virginia summertime heat.[2][3]
No replacement was found and he brought home $330 from his hard day of racing ($2,562 in today's American dollars).[2][3]
| Grid | No. | Driver | Manufacturer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 49 | Bobby Allison | '70 Mustang |
| 2 | 43 | Richard Petty | '71 Plymouth |
| 3 | 64 | Elmo Langley | '71 Ford |
| 4 | 14 | Jim Paschal | '70 Javelin |
| 5 | 48 | James Hylton | '71 Ford |
| 6 | 55 | Tiny Lund | '70 Camaro |
| 7 | 33 | Joe Dean Huss | '69 Camaro |
| 8 | 11 | Junior Spencer | '69 Camaro |
| 9 | 87 | Buck Baker | '71 Firebird |
| 10 | 06 | Neil Castles | '70 Dodge |
| 11 | 10 | Bill Champion | '70 Ford |
| 12 | 86 | David Ray Boggs | '71 Firebird |
| 13 | 45 | Bill Seifert | '69 Ford |
| 14 | 24 | Cecil Gordon | '69 Mercury |
| 15 | 15 | Wayne Andrews | '71 Mustang |
| 16 | 26 | Earl Brooks | '69 Ford |
| 17 | 41 | Gary Myers | '70 Mustang |
| 18 | 19 | Henley Gray | '69 Ford |
| 19 | 94 | Al Straub | '71 Mustang |
| 20 | 5 | Pee Wee Wentz | '69 Camaro |
| 21 | 78 | Paul Tyler | '69 Camaro |
| 22 | 7 | Jimmy Vaughn | '69 Camaro |
| 23 | 3 | Charlie Glotzbach | '71 Chevrolet |
| 24 | 74 | Bill Shirey | '69 Plymouth |
| 25 | 30 | Walter Ballard | '71 Ford |
| 26 | 25 | Jabe Thomas | '70 Plymouth |
| 27 | 34 | Wendell Scott | '69 Ford |
| 28 | 70 | Wendell Scott | '69 Mercury |
| 29 | 47 | Raymond Williams | '71 Ford |
| 30 | 2 | Randy Hutchinson | '71 Camaro |