1974 Southern 500
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34°17′50.5″N 79°54′18.4″W / 34.297361°N 79.905111°W
| Race details[1] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 23 of 30 in the 1974 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season | |||
 1974 Southern 500 program cover | |||
| Date | September 2, 1974 | ||
| Official name | Southern 500 | ||
| Location | Darlington Raceway, Darlington, South Carolina | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 1.375 miles (2.212 km) | ||
| Distance | 367 laps, 500.5 mi (805.4 km) | ||
| Weather | Extremely hot with temperatures of 91.9 °F (33.3 °C); wind speeds of 8.9 miles per hour (14.3 km/h) | ||
| Average speed | 111.075 mph (178.758 km/h) | ||
| Attendance | 65,000[2] | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Petty Enterprises | ||
| Time | 32.755 seconds | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Cale Yarborough | Junior Johnson & Associates | |
| Laps | 159 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 11 | Cale Yarborough | Junior Johnson & Associates | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | n/a | ||
| Announcers | n/a | ||
The 1974 Southern 500, the 25th running of the event, was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series race on September 2, 1974, at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. Richard Petty started on pole but Cale Yarborough led the most laps and won the event by a full lap ahead of second-place finisher Darrell Waltrip. Jerry Schild would score his only top-ten finish at this event, and David Sisco finished a career-best third place.
Darlington Raceway, nicknamed by many NASCAR fans and drivers as "The Lady in Black" or "The Track Too Tough to Tame" and advertised as a "NASCAR Tradition", is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is of a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design, an oval with the ends of very different configurations, a condition which supposedly arose from the proximity of one end of the track to a minnow pond the owner refused to relocate. This situation makes it very challenging for the crews to set up their cars' handling in a way that will be effective at both ends.
The track is a four-turn 1.366 miles (2.198 km) oval.[3] The track's first two turns are banked at twenty-five degrees, while the final two turns are banked two degrees lower at twenty-three degrees.[3] The front stretch (the location of the finish line) and the back stretch is banked at six degrees.[3] Darlington Raceway can seat up to 60,000 people.[3]
Darlington has something of a legendary quality among drivers and older fans; this is probably due to its long track length relative to other NASCAR speedways of its era and hence the first venue where many of them became cognizant of the truly high speeds that stock cars could achieve on a long track. The track allegedly earned the moniker The Lady in Black because the night before the race the track maintenance crew would cover the entire track with fresh asphalt sealant, in the early years of the speedway, thus making the racing surface dark black. Darlington is also known as "The Track Too Tough to Tame" because drivers can run lap after lap without a problem and then bounce off of the wall the following lap. Racers will frequently explain that they have to race the racetrack, not their competition. Drivers hitting the wall are considered to have received their "Darlington Stripe" thanks to the missing paint on the right side of the car.