By Mark Aumann, NASCAR.COM
January 28, 2005
01:48 PM EST (18:48 GMT)
Cale Yarborough destroyed his primary car in a 200 mph flip during qualifying but won the 25th Daytona 500 on Feb. 20, 1983, with his backup car, thanks to a slingshot pass of Buddy Baker on the final lap. Yarborough was the first driver to break the 200 mph barrier with his first qualifying lap of 200.503 mph, but because the car didn't make it back around for the second, it was disqualified and the time disallowed.  |  | NASCAR ACCELERATION | |
| ALSO IN 1983 ... |
| • | The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 71 people in Australia's worst ever fires (Feb. 16) |
| • | American Public Radio founded; changes its name to the current Public Radio International in 1994 (April 15) |
| • | Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 and causing more than $1 billion in damage (Aug. 18) |
| • | President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Nov. 2) |
| • | Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly UK£26 million are taken from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport. Only a fraction of the gold was ever recovered, and only two men were convicted of the crime (Nov. 26) |
Courtesy: Wikipedia
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Motor Trend's 1983 Car of the Year was the American Motors Renault Alliance, with the two-door coupe priced at $5,695. With his first-place check for $119,600, Yarborough could have purchased a fleet of 21 Alliances. On Jan. 2, the musical Annie closed on Broadway after 2,377 performances. If Yarborough had wanted to see the final performance, he could have driven an Alliance the 650-mile trip between Timmonsville, S.C., and Broadway in about 12 hours, or could have covered the distance in four hours and 10 minutes at his race-winning average of 155.979 mph. On Feb. 28, over 125 million people saw the final episode of M*A*S*H. On March 8, President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Maine schoolgirl Samatha Smith visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of leader Yuri Andropov in July. On March 23, Reagan announced his plans for a "Star Wars" missile defense system. Its cost was estimated at $60 billion. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi was released on May 25 and grossed over $300 million. Michael Jackson debuted his "moonwalk" March 25 during the taping of the Motown 25 television special. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band hit the charts with Shame on the Moon in February. Astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson did the first Space Shuttle spacewalk on April 7. Sally Ride took a ride of the Space Shuttle on June 18, the first American woman in space. The Right Stuff was one of 1983's top movies. The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network of the U.S. Department of Defense officially changed to the internet protocol suite in 1983. In June, Paul Mockapetris invented the Internet Domain Name System. In 1983, Al Gore was campaigning for Howard Baker's Senate seat. In 1999, Gore claimed in an interview: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet." On Jan. 19, Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was arrested in Bolivia. In 1983, Swedish Barbie and Spanish Barbie were added to the International Collection. That same day, the Apple Lisa personal computer was announced. Lisa Apple danced professionally for the Pacific Northwest Ballet for nine years, retiring in 2002. On Jan. 22, Swedish tennis star Bjorn Borg retired after winning five consecutive Wimbledon men's singles championships. The Star Trek: The Next Generation crew met the Borg for the first time in 1989. On March 1, Duran Duran's album Rio went gold. The average price for an ounce of gold was $380. McDonald's introduced its Chicken McNuggets in 1983. Tragedies in 1983 included the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people; the shooting down of a Korean jetliner by Russian fighter pilots, resulting in 269 deaths; and the bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, which killed 241. Current drivers born in 1983:
• Regan Smith (Sept. 23)
• Brian Vickers (Oct. 24) → Click here for more Daytona Countdown. | 
