In clear, beautiful color, here are Cale Yarborough and the Wood Brothers at the top of their game at Michigan International Speedway in 1970.

Produced in the trendy cinema-magazine style of the era, this little five-minute movie gives us a wonderful look at Michigan International Speedway and the NASCAR Grand National scene in June of 1970. This was only NASCAR’s second visit to the two-mile tri-oval 60 miles west of Detroit, when the track was nearly brand new. It’s fun to note how much the facility has evolved over the past 50-plus years, yet the place is still  instantly recognizable here as good old MIS.

The 1970 season was the last one for the Grand National name in NASCAR, as the RJ Reynolds Winston brand would enter the series as title sponsor the following year. Here in our film there are numerous plugs of Falstaff, the St. Louis beermaker that sponsored the seasons points title before Winston took over, so we’re wondering if maybe Falstaff underwrote this film production as well. Speaking of tobacco, there’s an  interesting moment at around the 40-second mark: David Pearson sitting in the cockpit of his Holman Moody Ford before the race, lighting up a cigarette with a built-in electric lighter. As hard as it may be to fathom today, cigarette lighters weren’t uncommon in NASCAR race cars back then.

The race itself was a good one, too: Early frontrunners included Pearson, Bobby Isaac, Charlie Glotzbach, and Richard Petty, but Petty suffered engine trouble just past the halfway mark while Glotzbach smacked the wall and spun in Turn 4. As the laps wound down, the final battle shaped up between Pete Hamilton, wheeling a Petty Engineering team car, and Cale Yarborough, who had fought his way to the front in his Wood Brothers Mercury after falling a lap down. The last two laps were door-handle to door-handle, Boss 429 versus Plymouth Superbird, with Yarborough muscling past Hamilton in Turn 3 for the victory. Awesome stuff. Video below.