Watch foxy Junior Johnson stalk the field to score a clever victory in the 1960 Daytona 500.
Here’s one of the great stories in stock car racing lore. Junior Johnson didn’t have the fastest or the most powerful car in the 1960 Daytona 500. No, he had a year-old ’59 Chevrolet under him, one that was prepared barely days earlier. And the Chevy was powered by a lowly 348 CID V8, outclassed by the muscular new 389 CID engines the Pontiacs were boasting that year.
Unfazed by the competitive disadvantage, the clever Johnson patiently stalked the field, using the aerodynamic draft to stay in contact with the Pontiac of Bobby Johns and the Plymouths of Lee and Richard Petty. With only nine laps remaining, the rear window on Johns’ Smokey Yunick-prepared Pontiac blew out, spinning him into the infield. Johns was able to continue, but by then Johnson was long gone, scoring the greatest victory of his young career.
Housekeeping note: At around the 2:30 mark in our little film, there’s generous coverage of a massive 37-car crash (the first Big One at Daytona, we could say). While the editing suggests this pileup was part of the 500-mile Grand National feature, in truth it took place in the Sportsman race that year. That bug aside, this film is an excellent six-minute snapshot of one of the great races in Daytona history.
Here are the corrections to the above article.
1. Bobby Johns car was a year old 1959 Pontiac like Junior Johnsons year old 1959 Chevy.
2. Bobby Johns 59 Pontiac had the 389 engine. The 389 was produced from 1959-1966. The text makes it read like the 389 was new for 1960, but it was a year old.
The car was the year old Yunick / Roberts car. The car was Prepped by Bobby Johns and his father Shorty Johns not Yunick.
3. Bobby Johns was in the lead with 8 laps to go when the rear backlight popped out creating a vacuum which lifted the rear wheels off the ground and caused the car to spin in the grassy infield, Johns recovered and finished the race in 2nd place behind Johnson. The text doesn’t give Bobby Johns the credit for a miraculous recovery which most drivers wouldn’t have been able to do, or the credit for finishing 2nd place.
4. If you watch the race from the very beginning, when the green flag went down the four cars on the poll were Fireball Roberts ( who drove the Johns 1959 car the year before ) 1960 Pontiac, Jack Smith 1960 Pontiac, 2nd row Cotton Owens 1960 Pontiac and Bobby Johns 1959 Pontiac.
Anyroad, watch the flag drop and those four Pontiac’s just run away from the field.
Interesting to note that Junior would switch to Pontiac for 1961, but the winner of the 61 Daytona 500 would be Marvin Panch driving the year old 1960 Pontiac that Fireball Roberts ran in 1960’s race and was on the poll with the other 3 Pontiac’s.
The clip was at best a fantasy. footage from at least 2 different races.
Correct that film, some of it was filmed in the mid 50’s. Here is a better one in the link below;
1960 Daytona 500 – YouTube
▶ 5:43
The track didn’t exist in the mid 50’s. The other race they pulled that accident clip from was the Sportsman race of the same year. A clarification is included in the introductory story.