|| *Comments on the 1970 Alabama 500:* View the most recent comment <#47> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. MegaRacer posted: 09.24.2007 - 2:35 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Not only did Pete Hamilton meet then Alabama Governor George C. Wallace in victory lane, but President Nixon watched on TV and sent a congratulatory letter to Hamilton. (Yes, I got that from the NASCAR Chronicle book!) 2. Sébastien posted: 07.27.2009 - 12:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hamilton #40 sponsor was 7-Up 3. Cameron posted: 04.25.2010 - 10:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Petty's sponsor was 7-Up as well according to the MRN broadcast, linked below. Makes sense considering him and Hamilton were teammates. http://www.motorracingnetwork.com/mc_video.aspx?artnum=55046 4. JoeytheHDK posted: 08.25.2010 - 1:08 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Various sponsors (From the MRN broadcast) #17 - Pearson: Purolator #32 - Brooks: Bestline Products #59 - Brickhouse: Pepsi-Cola #37 - Tarr: Coca-Cola #30 - Marcis: Lunda Construction #06 - Castles: Howard Furniture 5. Anonymous posted: 02.13.2012 - 2:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Alton Jones's only start. Buddy Baker had a big fire. Dave Alonzo blew an engine in his final start and crashed. 6. Anonymous posted: 01.08.2013 - 8:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jones ran a bunch of races. This was his first start, though. 7. rob posted: 04.22.2013 - 7:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) this race will be added to the motoracingnetwork.com classic race pages on may 2. 8. rob posted: 04.24.2013 - 9:56 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Believe it or not , there were races at two other major NASCAR venues the same day. The Grand American series for pony cars was running at Charlotte and modified and sportsman cars were running at Martinsville. 9. rob posted: 04.25.2013 - 11:18 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) MotorRacingNetwork.com is actually the site address. Really looking forward to hearing this re-broadcast. I was at the Dogwood 500 modified-sportsman doubleheader that day and listened to the end of the Talladega race in the car leaving the track. I remember cheering for Baker as he made up time on Hamilton with the checkered flag in sight. 10. rob posted: 04.25.2013 - 1:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Best career finish for Freddy Fryar. 11. rob posted: 04.25.2013 - 1:12 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Also best career finish for Butch Hirst. 12. rob posted: 04.25.2013 - 9:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) First of three starts for 1969 Talladega 500 winner Richard Brickhouse in a Tom Pistone Ford. After running this race , the World 600 at Charlotte , and the second Talladega event , Brickhouse would not race in the top tier series again for nearly nine years . 13. rob posted: 04.25.2013 - 9:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Longtime Alabama independent driver Ben Arnold fielded cars for Alton Jones and himself. 14. rob posted: 04.25.2013 - 10:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) American Airlines pilot Jimmy Crawford makes in first start in a major NASCAR event. He had credit for running a single Grand National race since the Daytona qualifiers still counted as a points race back then. A little over three years later Dick Brooks would pilot a Crawford owned car to victory in the 1973 Talladega 500 in one of the sports biggest upsets. 15. rob posted: 04.25.2013 - 10:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) After running nearly all of his early Grand National career for car owner L.G. De Witt , John Sears began 1970 running for different owners. After this event he would return to DeWitt for the rest of his career starts except for one race. 16. Sunoco posted: 04.28.2013 - 10:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I wonder why this is trending now? 17. nascargavin8 posted: 04.29.2013 - 2:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I've been looking for any video clips of this event for a long time. If anyone has it, please contact me on either youtube or send me an email at yahoo. nascargavin8 for both. 18. rob posted: 04.29.2013 - 6:44 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) I have put many additions to the comments page since I found out that this race was going to be featured on the MRN site's Throwback Thursday. That has caused this event to move up the trending page. 19. rob posted: 08.15.2013 - 2:36 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dave Alonzo makes his final of four starts. He made his starts on four different forms of NASCAR speedways. Texas World Speedway ( intermediate), Martinsville (short track), Riverside (road course) and Talladega (superspeedway). 20. zuel660 posted: 01.16.2014 - 10:08 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) VERY impressive pole speed for Bobby Isaac - 199.658 mph! 21. simonracer posted: 10.25.2014 - 9:39 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Wayne Smith (in Chevrolet) withdrew. E.J. Trivette took his place in the race. Johnny Halford (Dodge) was another DNQ. 22. simonracer posted: 10.25.2014 - 9:54 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Also, Tom Ingram was the crew chief for Dick Brooks. 23. Patrick posted: 05.08.2017 - 9:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) heard the MRN broadcast of this race recently. Fun race. 24. Rob posted: 05.11.2017 - 10:09 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Not mentioned yet, that Baker led Hamilton by a few seconds with both needing to pit in the last 20 laps. Baker took four tires and fuel as he pitted first. Hamilton forced Baker's hand as he took only two tires and fuel, saving a substantial amount of time and returning to the track with a huge lead. Baker blew the motor as the flatout pace to catch Hamilton was too much for the hemi. 25. Jordan posted: 01.19.2018 - 10:14 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I wonder if anyone during the race turned a lap of over 200 mph. I know now days they track the lap speed of each car every lap. Without electronic timing and scoring I doubt they did in 1970 but I wouldn't be surprised if one of the Dodge Daytona's cracked the 200 mph "barrier" during the race. 26. nascarman posted: 02.11.2018 - 10:17 am Rate this comment: (4) (0) This was the first NASCAR points-race to be shown live on TV (in 1960 CBS showed a Daytona 500 non-points qualifying race). ABC joined the race around halfway and showed only the 2nd half live. However, the broadcast ended poorly. The TV crew thought Bobby Isaac was the leader and was confused when Hamilton was given the checkered flag. The broadcast went long and they left the air before the victory lane interview, saying "we think Pete Hamilton won." The final round of The Masters golf tournament was shown on another channel at the same time and this race had higher ratings. While video of other broadcasts from 1970 have surfaced, this one is still believed to not exist. Maybe somewhere film of it is hidden away in storage. The Apollo 13 space mission was underway at the time of this race. The famous "Houston, we have a problem" malfunction occured the following night. 27. Clarence posted: 11.15.2019 - 10:24 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Wendell Scott's sponsor was "Ford" 28. rm posted: 12.06.2019 - 8:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsors: 6 - Eberhart Nunn Dodge 30 - Dodge of Decatur, AL 43 - Plymouth by Petty Buddy Baker would later say that this was one of the few races he didn't mind losing, as he was glad to be alive (though burnt) after his big late-race accident. Cale Yarborough lost several laps on pit road when his car wouldn't refire, while Richad Petty lost a couple more laps himself when the crew had to go under the hood of the #43 Plymouth. 29. JollyMeanGiant posted: 04.20.2020 - 7:22 pm Rate this comment: (5) (0) Apparently the ABC broadcast footage of this race has been unearthed because NASCAR is planning to upload it to their official Youtube channel this week. Helluva find! 30. Timothy_Eklund posted: 04.20.2020 - 10:51 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) I suspected that nascar had the tape hidden somewhere. Glad They're uploading it! 31. Canadianfan posted: 04.21.2020 - 2:01 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) @30 from Ken Martin Senior Manager of Archive Development for NASCAR. AKA the ?NASCAR Historian.? This was an answer to a reddit AMA question. We have every race broadcast since 1981. Prior to 1981, we have the broadcasts that CBS or ABC Wide World of Sports would have done - and that goes back to 1961. In the 50s, there were no race broadcasts but we do have some newsreel and documentary style films from the races of that era. We have every truck series race and about 95% of the Busch / Xfinity Series - there are some from the early 80s that we're still missing because they weren't televised. 32. RaceFanX posted: 04.21.2020 - 8:52 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @32 That's wonderful news. That means the coverage of the inaugural Busch race at Daytona in 1982 and the fabled Nazareth Truck race that was delayed by rain in 1996 do exist. Maybe one day they too will surface. 33. Ralphie posted: 04.21.2020 - 10:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) It would be great not only to see the videos of those early Busch Series races but also to be able to obtain a lot of missing data such as starting positions and sponsors. 34. RaceFanX posted: 04.23.2020 - 9:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The ABC broadcast picked up the action just after halfway at about lap 100. One of the announcers highlighted what had happened during the untelevised part of the race by showing scale models of the cars that started up front and talking about where they were now. 35. Kellen posted: 04.23.2020 - 9:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Was stated on the broadcast Leeroy Yarborough and Donnie Allison did not race this weekend due to budget cuts with Ford and would not have time to get both cars prepared via team owner Junior Johnson. 36. Kellen posted: 04.23.2020 - 9:43 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Cale Yarborough's windshield was caved in and damaged due to a glass beer bottle thrown on to the track. The windshield was removed during the pit stop and Cale continued on the remainder of the race at speeds of 190mph with out a windshield. 37. Yeet posted: 04.23.2020 - 11:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) J.D. McDuffie drove car #70 owned by J.D. himself. He debuted his Superspeedway '69 Ford in attempting to make the field, however he DNQ'd and this Ford ran at the Firecracker 400. 38. Yeet posted: 04.25.2020 - 7:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The WD of Wayne Smith drove car #33 owned by himself. 39. Anonymous posted: 04.25.2020 - 5:50 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) The #64 of Langley was a '69 Mercury, not a '69 Ford (@ 19:38 in the nascar vid). Also comment 46 another windshield was put on at 55:40 mins into the vid. 40. zuel660 posted: 04.26.2020 - 11:13 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) It's on YouTube now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzb7nWyjwBU 41. JimmyS posted: 04.28.2020 - 7:32 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Corrected sponsors (From the ABC broadcast) #22 - Bobby Allison: Bill Strange Dodge Allison did not get the Coca Cola sponsorship until later that season. 42. Rob posted: 07.29.2020 - 12:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) As glad as I was to see this telecast unearthed, I must admit that it's hard to watch as the announcers and apparently even NASCAR officials struggled to figure out who was leading at the end. 43. Jim4Bill posted: 07.29.2020 - 4:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Keith Jackson needed to throw in a couple woo nellies during the race to liven things up. 44. Rob posted: 10.02.2020 - 2:41 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Of the race's 32 lead changes, 28 occurred before halfway. In other words the real action happened before the TV cameras began rolling. 45. christian posted: 04.05.2021 - 1:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) pete hamilton was an underrated plate racer 46. JimDavis posted: 04.05.2021 - 8:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "pete hamilton was an underrated plate racer" Pete Hamilton never ran a plate race. The plates were introduced well after his career was over. 47. Danish_Pie posted: 04.05.2021 - 8:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Restrictor plates were first introduced in 1970 as NASCAR started to ween back the max engine sizes to 358ci. So while Hamilton did in fact run the plate in his career, the point does stand that he never ran what we would later call plate races. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: