Richard Petty put the hurt on the field with his lopsided victory in the 1966 Daytona 500. Here’s all the action, including some great behind-the-scenes footage.
The 1966 edition of the Daytona 500 was a memorable one on several counts—it was one for the books, as they say.
+ Rookies that year included Gordon Johncock, a hotshot Super Modified pilot from central Michigan who would later win the Indianapolis 500 twice, and a young USAC standout named Mario Andretti, handpicked by Smokey Yunick to drive his slick ’66 Chevelle, which also made its debut here.
+ The Chrysler 426 hemis were back in force after a season of NASCAR political exile. Richard Petty’s Plymouth led the stampede with a record pole speed of 175.163 mph, and he clicked off even faster laps on race day. While Petty would win the Daytona 500 seven times, 1966 was the only year he took the pole position there.
+ The often-fickle Florida weather interfered with the festivities at Daytona all month, cancelling numerous practice sessions and shortening the big feature on race day by two laps.
Petty’s speedy Plymouth led more than half the distance and put a full lap on the field in conquering the ’66 race, not an uncommon feat back then. This leads us to wonder: Would current NASCAR fans, conditioned to today’s green-white-checker battles to the finish, be willing to accept such lop-sided results? Times and tastes do change, that’s for sure. Enjoy the film, which includes some rare behind-the-scenes footage. Video below.
The golden age, when stock cars mostly were, folks knew which bathroom they were supposed to use, and a 500 mile race wasn’t 5 one hundred mile races (or however they split them up)
I’m surprised the Fords ran as fast as they did. It was a bad year for Ford.
Back in the “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” glory days of NASCAR. You had your favorite drivers and favorite cars, and could tell each car by it’s shape. Real stock bodies down to the chrome bumpers, not fabbed up bellybuttons that don’t share anything with the cars they supposedly represent. Great racing like we’ll probably never get to see again except in these great vids hunted down my MCG! Thanks for the trip back in time!