By Mark Aumann, NASCAR.COM
January 18, 2005
10:23 AM EST (15:23 GMT)
When A.J. Foyt ran out of gas, Richard Petty was there to take his third victory in the 13th Daytona 500 on Feb. 14, 1971.  |  | NASCAR ACCELERATION | |
| ALSO IN 1971... |
| • | Howard Hughes breaks his silence to announce that his supposed biography is a forgery (Jan. 7) |
| • | Charles Manson and three female "family members" are found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Sharon Tate and others (Jan. 25) |
| • | In Britain, Rolls Royce goes bankrupt -- state takes over (Feb. 4) |
| • | A new country, Bangladesh, is born from territory formerly part of Pakistan (May 31) |
| • | In Washington, DC, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass (Sept. 8) |
Courtesy: Wikipedia
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Ford unveiled the Pinto for the 1971 model year. A 1971 Ford Pinto two-door sedan was listed at $1,919. Petty would have been able to afford 23 Pintos with the first-place check of $45,450. On July 31, Apollo 15 astronauts take the new Lunar Rover for a spin on the moon's surface. With a maximum sustained speed of 10 mph and a price tag of $9 million each, Petty could have purchased less than a half-percent of a Rover with his winnings. Lynn Anderson had the No. 2 song in the country with "Rose Garden," right behind "One Bad Apple" by The Osmonds. President Nixon's daughter, Tricia, married Edward Cox in the White House Rose Garden on June 12. If Petty had wanted to attend the wedding, he could have made the 322-mile drive from Level Cross, N.C. to Washington, D.C. in about six and a half hours in the Pinto, or two hours and 14 minutes in his high-flying Plymouth, which averaged 144.462 mph. An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 on the Richter scale hit California's San Fernando Valley on Feb. 9. Satchel Paige became the first Negro Leaguer inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on that day as well. A new stock market index debuted on Feb. 8 -- the NASDAQ. The heavily-high tech NASDAQ Composite began with a base of 100. If Petty had been able to invest his winnings in the NASDAQ Composite in 1971, that $45,450 would now be worth about $952,000. |
Marty Smith's Top 10Projected finishes for 2005 |
| No. |
Driver |
| 1. |
D. Jarrett |
| 2. |
J. Gordon |
3. |
R. LaJoie |
| 4. |
B. Said |
| 5. |
G. Biffle |
| 6. |
J. Mayfield |
| 7. |
E. Sadler |
| 8. |
M. Bliss |
| 9. |
Ku. Busch |
| 10. |
M. McLaughlin |
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Amtrak began intercity rail passenger service on May 1. On July 5, President Nixon formally certified the 26th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which lowered the voting age to 18. Petty's son, Kyle, was 18 when he won the 1979 ARCA 200 at Daytona in his first stock-car race. "All In The Family" was the No. 1 rated television show in 1971. On July 16, officials determined that the world's four billionth baby was born. On Oct. 1, Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom opened in Kissimmee, Fla. If the Magic Kingdom has averaged 14 million guests a year since its opening, a total of about 462 million have visited the amusement park. Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson invented Internet based e-mail in 1971. Tomlinson chose the @ symbol to tell which user was "at" what computer. The @ went between the user's login name and the name of the host computer. The first e-mail was sent between two computers that were next to each other. The first e-mail message was "QWERTYUIOP." The first spam e-mail was believed to have been sent in 1978 to announce the introduction of a new DEC computer. Current drivers born in 1971:
• Kelly Sutton (Sept. 24)
• Jeff Gordon (Aug. 4)
• Scott Riggs (Jan. 1)
• Tony Stewart (May 20) → Click here for more Daytona Countdown. | 
