|| *Comments on the 1972 Texas 500:* View the most recent comment <#23> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. HomeDepotKid posted: 10.26.2004 - 9:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I don't think that a lot of people realize this, but this race ended a streak. For some odd 39 straight races, from the 1971 Southern 500 to the 1972 American 500 at Rockingham, Bobby Allison led at least one lap. Should Allison had led one lap at this race at Texas World Speedway, he would have been the first driver(And so far, the only driver) to lead a lap in every NASCAR Strictly Stock/Grand National/Winston Cup/Nextel Cup race. His 39 race "races led" streak, also referred to as his "Joe DiMaggio Streak", has not been attacked. 2. DEIFan16 posted: 08.28.2007 - 1:34 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I knew that! :) 3. ii posted: 10.09.2010 - 7:36 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) I did too. 4. The Great Dave posted: 05.06.2011 - 12:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsors #01 Buanno Transportation #06 Howard Furniture #47 Jet Way Wax #61 Lone Star Special/Bierschwale-Haverlah #77 Sunny King #90 Truxmore 5. David posted: 06.25.2012 - 9:16 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I did too, but don't judge most modern NASCAR fans' knowledge by me. 6. David posted: 10.28.2012 - 4:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That previous statement probably came off wrong. I apologize. 7. Anonymoose posted: 01.01.2016 - 5:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Final Standings: The numbers here are the ones that I calculated. In parentheses next to the numbers will be the difference between what I calculated and the official results from NASCAR. If there is no number in parentheses, then they were the same. I doubled checked my math a few times to make sure I didn't make any mistakes, and I'm fairly sure I didn't. My best guess is the lap counts NASCAR used to give points for some drivers were slightly different than the lap tallies. 1) Richard Petty 8701.4 2) Bobby Allison 8573.5 3) James Hylton 8158.7 4) Cecil Gordon 7326.05 5) Benny Parsons 6848.15 (+4) 6) Walter Ballard 6787.45 (+6) 7) Elmo Langley 6660.25 (+4) 8) John Sears 6302.5 (+4) 9) Dean Dalton 6299.05 (+4) 10) Ben Arnold 6179 11) Frank Warren 5790.6 (+2) 12) Jabe Thomas 5774.55 (+2) 13) Bill Champion 5742.7 (+2) 14) Raymond Williams 5712.65 15) Dave Marcis 5460.9 (+1.25) 16) Charlie Roberts 5354.45 17) Henley Gray 5087.65 (+5.99) 18) J.D. McDuffie 5079.35 (+3.5) 19) Bobby Isaac 5054.85 (+4) 20) David Pearson 4718 8. Anonymoose posted: 01.01.2016 - 5:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This points system was pretty interesting. At the drop of the green flag in this race, since there were 44 starters, once Petty completed 212 laps, he would have clinched the championship regardless of where he finished. As the race actually played out, once Buddy Arrington dropped out with engine failure after completing 184 laps, Petty had locked up a 33rd place finish. From there he only needed to complete 190 laps to clinch the championship. So, 190 laps into the race, Petty became the champion. 9. rob posted: 05.22.2016 - 7:59 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Apparently , there was no radio broadcast of this race. 10. ChaseElliott24Fan2016 posted: 11.27.2016 - 2:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Here's another interesting fact about the 1972 season in general. by Buddy Baker winning this race, that made 1972 the first season with NO first-time Cup series winners 11. pimmy posted: 03.14.2017 - 5:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) There seems to be some confusion over the points system depending on which source you look at. According to an archived NASCAR.com page Petty scored 2872 points, which is correct when ONLY finishing positions are taken into account based on a 100, 98, 96... scale. Although, it seems wins were actually worth 125 points which would give him 3072 in total. According to most sources, including R-R, Petty scored 8701.4 points, with finishing positions AND laps completed taken into account. According to Jayski, ONLY laps completed were taken into account, which would have given Petty a total of either 5629.4 or 5829.4, depending on whether wins were worth 125 or 100 points. So since most sources say 8701.4 was the final score, I assume the 1972 points system was the same as the one used in 1973 (125 for a win plus bonus points for laps completed). Is this correct? 12. pimmy posted: 03.14.2017 - 5:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "According to Jayski, ONLY laps completed were taken into account, which would have given Petty a total of either 5629.4 or 5829.4, depending on whether wins were worth 125 or 100 points." I should add that those figures are calculated based on the given 8701.4 with finishing position points subtracted. 13. kup posted: 11.14.2017 - 12:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) UPS: universal points system. Driver's UPoints = Miles / Aver.Finish 1972 UPS _ Driver = Miles / AF 2552 _ Richard Petty 11995 / 4.7 2226 _ Bobby Allison 11800 / 5.3 1208 _ James Hylton 11475 / 9.5 719 _ Cecil Gordon 10420 / 14.5 653 _ Benny Parsons 9463 / 14.5 & TOTAL: UPS! 24 years 1949-1972: Lee Petty 5 in: 1950, 1952, 1954, 1958, 1959. Richard Petty 5 in: 1963, 1964, 1967, 1971, 1972. David Pearson 3 in: 1966, 1968, 1969. Buck Baker 2 in: 1956, 1957. Rex White 2 in: 1960, 1961. Bill Blair 1 in: 1949. Fonty Flock 1 in: 1951. Herb Thomas 1 in: 1953. Tim Flock 1 in: 1955. Joe Weatherly 1 in: 1962. Ned Jarrett 1 in: 1965. Bobby Isaac 1 in: 1970. 14. Brandon posted: 03.31.2018 - 2:16 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) A total of 8 manufacturers raced in the 31 races in 1972, here is how many races each showed up to. AMC: 12 Chevrolet: 31 Dodge: 31 Ford: 31 Mercury: 31 Oldsmobile: 2 Plymouth: 31 Pontiac: 5 15. Jim posted: 05.14.2020 - 7:18 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Great run by Hershel McGriff. At the time of this post he is 92 years young. 16. Mike posted: 08.03.2020 - 2:11 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Another fact about this race: It was the season finale, making 1971-1972 at Texas World the first time ever that the same track had the season finale in consecutive seasons. 17. ARosser14 posted: 12.31.2020 - 7:41 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) Last of 12 races for A.J. Foyt with the Wood Brothers (two in the No. 41 in 1965 and ten in the famous No. 21 from '71-72). Hard to imagine a more impressive twelve-race pairing for any driver and team, as he won five times (including the 1972 Daytona 500), recorded ten top-five finishes, and sat on six poles. In the storied annals of Wood Brothers Racing, despite only driving a dozen races for them, A.J. is the fifth-winningest driver in the team's history, behind only David Pearson (of course), Cale Yarborough, Neil Bonnett, and Marvin Panch. 18. Mile501 posted: 12.31.2020 - 7:50 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) @17 - What an impressive pairing indeed; thank you for making note of those stats! In those 12 races, Foyt never finished worse than 4th when he was running at the finish. And he led laps in all 12 races except for the first. 19. possum posted: 12.31.2020 - 6:55 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @17 - well, I'm not sure it'd be easy to find many other cases where a driver ran exactly 12 races for a team. A somewhat similar stat could be given for Dan Gurney & the Woods - 8 races, 4 wins. 20. Mile501 posted: 01.01.2021 - 7:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @19 - I don't think Dan Gurney's record with the Wood Brothers is as impressive. He was, of course, a road course expert, and all 4 of those wins came at Riverside. In his other 4 races with the Wood Brothers, he failed to lead a single lap and wasn't very impressive at all. 21. possum posted: 01.01.2021 - 6:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @20 - well, yes and no. On the one hand, it points out the flaws of judging a driver just by the numbers, which is so common on this site (and by that standard, 4 of 8 is certainly better than 5 of 12). OTOH, Gurney's near unbeatability at Riverside (he had another win there, driving for Holman-Moody, I think) is certainly impressive. The whole "road course ringer" idea is entirely based on Gurney. (I beleive Gurney also had a top 5 at Daytona in a Holman-Moody car, but other than that his oval course attempts were eminently forgettable). 22. RaceFanX posted: 01.05.2021 - 9:56 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Buddy Baker infamously crashed out in caution while leading by two laps here at Texas World Speedway during its inaugural race in 1969 when an attempt to read a message on his team's pit board went wrong. Here Baker gets to avenge that loss three years later as he takes the K&K Insurance #71 Dodge straight to victory lane after besting Texas' homestate hero A.J. Foyt to do so. This runner-up effort was Supertex's only NASCAR Cup start at the College Station track but he won here four times in USAC Champ Car IndyCar action. It was the closest thing Foyt ever had to a hometown NASCAR race as he's from Houston which is only 90 minutes away from College Station. The Cup series did actually race in Houston during this era with with its one-off appearance at Meyer Speedway in 1971 but Foyt wasn't in the field for that Wednesday night short track race as he only tended to run the larger NASCAR races that didn't conflict with his IndyCar efforts. 23. Seb posted: 02.21.2021 - 2:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #04 McGriff was sponsored by Hirt & Wood Lumber Co. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: