1965 Southern 500

Coordinates: 34°17′50.5″N 79°54′18.4″W / 34.297361°N 79.905111°W / 34.297361; -79.905111

1965 Southern 500
Race details[1]
Race 45 of 55 in the 1965 NASCAR Grand National Series season

Layout of Darlington Raceway
Date September 6, 1965 (1965-September-06)
Official name Southern 500
Location Darlington Raceway, Darlington, South Carolina
Course Permanent racing facility
1.375 mi (2.212 km)
Distance 364 laps, 500.5 mi (805.4 km)
Weather Warm with temperatures reaching up to 81 °F (27 °C); wind speeds up to 13 miles per hour (21 km/h)
Average speed 115.878 miles per hour (186.488 km/h)
Pole position
Driver
Junior Johnson & Associates
Most laps led
Driver Darel Dieringer Bud Moore Engineering
Laps 199
Winner
No. 86 Ned Jarrett Bondy Long
Television in the United States
Network ABC (tape-delay basis)
Announcers Jim McKay

The 1965 Southern 500, the 16th running of the event, was a NASCAR Grand National Series event that was held on September 6, 1965 at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina.

The race took four hours and nineteen minutes to complete with Ned Jarrett beating Buck Baker by a distance of fourteen laps and 19 laps over third and fourth-place finishers: Darel Dieringer and Roy Mayne; which would remain a NASCAR record to this very day.

Background

Layout of Darlington Raceway, the track where the race was held.

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.[2] 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.[2] The front stretch (the location of the finish line) and the back stretch is banked at six degrees.[2] Darlington Raceway can seat up to 60,000 people.[2]

Summary

In mileage, the gap between Jarrett and Baker is the equivalent of 19.25 miles or 30.98 kilometres. Drivers who failed to qualify for this race were: Pee Wee Ellwanger (Dodge), Wendell Scott (Ford), Worth McMillion (Pontiac) and Bernard Alvarez (Ford).[3] By modern-day standards, this race was considered to be a blowout. Every competitive car had problems with the exception of Jarrett's vehicle; even Buddy Baker's vehicle overheated on lap 123 and he was the odds-on favorite to win the race that day.

Jarrett would go on to claim his second NASCAR championship title after the November 7 race at the Dog Track Speedway in Moyock, North Carolina. While 44 cars would originally start the race, only 15 of them would survive until the end. Buren Skeen received fatal injuries in a crash on the second lap of the race and died a week later. Cale Yarborough would sail off the wall in an unrelated accident; he crashed with Sam McQuagg. Fortunately, seat belts managed to save both of their lives. Curtis Turner would be permitted to race after Bill France dropped his lifetime ban for promoting a trade union with NASCAR. Richard Petty did not race even though he stopped boycotting Chrysler and the Grand National Series.

Other notable names who participated included: Junior Johnson, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Elmo Langley, Wendell Scott, and Darel Dieringer. The winner would walk away with $21,060 while the last place winner would receive $750 in total winnings.[4]

Finishing order

† signifies that the driver is known to be deceased
* Driver failed to finish race

Timeline

References

  1. ↑ "1965 Southern 500 weather information". The Old Farmers' Almanac. Retrieved 2012-09-02.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Darlington Raceway". CBS Sports. Retrieved 2013-05-07.
  3. ↑ "1965 Southern 500 information". Racing Reference. Retrieved 2015-03-01.
  4. ↑ "1965 Southern 500 information". Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet. Retrieved 2012-09-08.
Preceded by
1965 Myers Brothers 250		 NASCAR Grand National Series season
1965 		Succeeded by
1965 Buddy Shuman 250
Preceded by
1964		 Southern 500 races
1965 		Succeeded by
1966
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