Daytona Countdown: '68

Cale Yarborough beat LeeRoy Yarbrough by one second to win the 10th Daytona 500 on Feb. 25, 1968.

"Hawaii Five-O" premiered in 1968. Donnie Allison captured the 1977 Daytona 500 pole in the No. 1 Hawaiian Tropic Chevrolet. In the 1979 Daytona 500, Allison and Yarborough would have a well-publicized last-lap crash/fistfight/mud wrestling match.

In 1968, the first 16 Hot Wheels models were introduced. Two years earlier, Elliot Handler, the "El" in Mattel, set out to develop a "hot" die-cast car. When Elliot first saw designer Harry Bradley's classic Southern California hot rod in the parking lot he said, "Man, those are some hot wheels."

KNOW YOUR NASCAR •   NASCAR 101 •   History •   NASCAR By the Numbers ALSO IN 1968 ... •   In Haleyville, Ala., the first 911 emergency phone system goes into service (Feb. 16)  •   Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis (Apr. 4)  •   Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan (June 5)  •   Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two African-Americans competing in the Olympic 200 meter run, raise their arms in a black power salute after winning the gold and bronze medals (Oct. 16)  •   Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy marry in Greece (Oct. 20)  Courtesy:  Wikipedia

Hot Wheels -- which retailed for 59 cents -- featured redline tires, spectraflame paint, a metal collector button and some had roofs painted black to look like vinyl. With Yarborough's first-place check for $47,250, he could have purchased more than 80,000 Hot Wheels (not including plastic track).

First off the Hot Wheels assembly line was the Chevrolet Camaro, followed by the Corvette. In fact, Hot Wheels sold a custom Corvette die-cast before General Motors produced the actual car.

Kyle Petty finished seventh in the 1999 Daytona 500 while driving the No. 44 Hot Wheels Pontiac.

A 1968 Corvette Sting Ray with a 435-horsepower V8 engine could be purchased for $4,663. A Schwinn Sting-Ray Krate bicycle, with a 16-inch front wheel, fat rear tire, rear shock and patented Stik-Shift could be had for between $86.95 and $129.95.

If Yarborough had driven a Corvette Sting Ray from his hometown of Timmonsville, S.C., to the Schwinn corporate headquarters in Chicago to buy a Sting-Ray Krate, the 872-mile trip would have taken almost 18 hours at freeway speeds -- or six hours and five minutes at the race-winning speed of 143.251 mph.

On Feb. 8, the Boeing 747 made its maiden flight. Apollo 7 launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 11 and Apollo 8 orbited the moon on Dec. 24. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was in movie theaters during the summer of 1968. Dave Marcis began an odyssey of 32 consecutive Daytona 500 starts that year.

"Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" debuted on Jan. 22, but the rest of the year was anything but funny. Five days after President Lyndon Johnson declared he would not seek re-election, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles on June 5. Riots marred the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

Richard Nixon narrowly defeated Hubert Humphrey on Nov. 5 to win the presidency.

Current drivers born in 1968:
• Chad Chaffin (July 20)
• Terry Cook (Feb. 26)

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