1951 Southern 500
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 24 of 41 in the 1951 NASCAR Grand National Series season | |||
Layout of Darlington Raceway
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| Date | September 3, 1951 | ||
| Official name | Southern 500 | ||
| Location | Darlington Raceway, Darlington, South Carolina | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility 1.25 mi (2.01 km) |
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| Distance | 400 laps, 500 mi (800 km) | ||
| Weather | Hot with temperatures reaching up to 91.9 °F (33.3 °C); wind speeds up to 8.9 miles per hour (14.3 km/h) | ||
| Average speed | 76.906 miles per hour (123.768 km/h) | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Perry Smith | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Herb Thomas | Herb Thomas | |
| Laps | 311 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 92 | Herb Thomas | Herb Thomas | |
The 1951 Southern 500, the second running of the event, was a NASCAR Grand National Series event that was held on September 3, 1961, at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina.
The race car drivers still had to commute to the races using the same stock cars that competed in a typical weekend's race through a policy of homologation (and under their own power). This policy was in effect until roughly 1975. By 1980, NASCAR had completely stopped tracking the year model of all the vehicles and most teams did not take stock cars to the track under their own power anymore.
Darlington Raceway, nicknamed by many NASCAR fans and drivers as "The Lady in Black" or "The Track Too Tough to Tame" and advertised as a "NASCAR Tradition", is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is of a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design, an oval with the ends of very different configurations, a condition which supposedly arose from the proximity of one end of the track to a minnow pond the owner refused to relocate. This situation makes it very challenging for the crews to set up their cars' handling in a way that will be effective at both ends.
The track is a four-turn 1.366 miles (2.198 km) oval. The track's first two turns are banked at twenty-five degrees, while the final two turns are banked two degrees lower at twenty-three degrees. The front stretch (the location of the finish line) and the back stretch is banked at six degrees. Darlington Raceway can seat up to 60,000 people.
Four hundred laps were done on a paved oval track spanning 1.250 miles (2.012 km) for a grand total of 500.0 miles (804.7 km). Notable speeds for the race were: 76.906 miles per hour (123.768 km/h) and 84.173 miles per hour (135.463 km/h) for the pole position speed. Four cautions were handed out by NASCAR official for a duration of twenty-six laps.Herb Thomas defeated Jesse James Taylor by more than one lap in front of forty thousand people. Oliver Dial, Frank Gise, Rudy Hires, Sandy Lynch, Fred Moore, Bob Pronger, Gwyn Staley, Billy Tibbett, and Herb Trimble would make their respective professional stock car racing starts in this event.
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