By Mark Aumann, NASCAR.COM
January 5, 2005
10:17 AM EST (15:17 GMT)
In front of nearly 42,000 fans, Lee Petty edged Johnny Beauchamp by 2 feet in the inaugural Daytona 500 on Feb. 22, 1959, earning Petty a payday of $19,050. That might not seem like much when compared to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s $1.4 million payout in 2004, but in 1959, the U.S. Census Bureau reported the average median family income in Randolph County, N.C., was $18,023, so Petty pretty much did a year's worth of work in a little under four hours.  |  | NASCAR ACCELERATION | |
| ALSO IN 1959 ... |
| • | Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba (Feb. 16) |
| • | The Marx Brothers' last TV appearance, in 'The Incredible Jewel Robbery' (March 8) |
| • | The St. Lawrence Seaway linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping (April 25) |
| • | Explorer VI sends back the first picture of Earth from space (Aug. 16) |
| • | In New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public (Oct. 21) |
Courtesy: Wikipedia
|
|
A little trivia: Petty was not the first driver to visit Daytona's Victory Lane. That honor went to Bob Welborn, who won a 100-mile qualifying race two days before the 500. After fielding 1957 Oldsmobiles the previous two seasons, Petty Enterprises added one new car for 1959, a Oldsmobile Super 88 coupe. That was the car Petty drove to victory at the new Daytona International Speedway. With a showroom sticker price of about $3,900 -- not including tax, tag and title -- Petty could have bought four more Super 88s and had enough money left over to purchase 164 gallons of gas, at the average price of 21 cents a gallon in 1959, not including taxes. Or Petty could have purchased 45 six-ply whitewall tires to stick on those four Super 88s at $76.10 apiece in 1959. Ford discontinued its Edsel brand in 1959, but not before Paul Bass drove an Edsel to a 46th-place finish in the field of 59 cars. Since Alaska was admitted as a state on Jan. 3, that makes Petty the only Daytona 500 champion during a time when there were 49 states. That's because Hawaii became the 50th state on Aug. 21. Petty's win came just three weeks after Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on Feb. 3. Donna by Valens was probably playing on many car radios as fans tried to fight the traffic. It was No. 2 on the charts behind Lloyd Price's Stagger Lee. On Feb. 6, if anyone had been practicing at the track, they might have seen the contrail of the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canveral. The Barbie doll debuted March 9 with a retail price of $3, so Petty could have bought 6,350 Barbies with his winnings -- or one Barbie and a lot of accessories. Bonanza first appeared on television in 1959. The western featuring Lorne Greene and Michael Landon was set on the fictional Ponderosa Ranch, near Virginia City, Nev. If Petty had wanted to travel to Virginia City from his hometown of Randleman, N.C., it would have taken more than 52 hours to cover the 2,629 miles while obeying the speed limit -- or about 19 hours and 24 minutes at Petty's race-winning average speed of 135.521 mph. Current drivers born in 1959:
• Mark Martin (Jan. 9)
• Jeff Purvis (Feb. 19)
• Mike Wallace (March 10)
• Mark Green (April 7)
• Robert Pressley (April 8)
• Ron Fellows (Sept. 28) → Click here for more Daytona Countdown. | 
