1970 Tidewater 300
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 48 of 48 in the 1970 NASCAR Grand National Series season | |||
| Date | November 22, 1970 | ||
| Official name | Tidewater 300 | ||
| Location | Langley Field Speedway, Hampton, Virginia | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility 0.395 mi (0.836 km) |
||
| Distance | 300 laps, 118.5 mi (190.3 km) | ||
| Weather | Chilly with temperatures approaching 63 °F (17 °C); wind speeds up to 13 miles per hour (21 km/h) | ||
| Average speed | 69.584 miles per hour (111.985 km/h) | ||
| Attendance | 3,200 | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | DeWitt Racing | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Bobby Allison | Bobby Allison Motorsports | |
| Laps | 254 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 22 | Bobby Allison | Bobby Allison Motorsports | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | untelevised | ||
| Announcers | none | ||
The 1970 Tidewater 300 was a NASCAR Grand National Series (now Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series) event that was held on Sunday, November 22, 1970, at Langley Field Speedway in Hampton, Virginia.
The race car drivers who used General Motors vehicles would be humiliated at the end of the race because they failed to win any races during the 1970 NASCAR Grand National Series season.
Langley Speedway is a paved short track measuring 0.395 miles in length, it is one of the flattest tracks in the region with only six degrees of banking in the corners and four degrees on the straights.
Considered to be the 48th event of the 1970 season, this race was the final race of an unregulated stock car racing organization without a corporate sponsor. Economic issues and the need to increase the total amount of winnings for each qualifying participant required NASCAR to accept a major corporate sponsor to bankroll what will become multimillion-dollar purses by the end of the 20th century. Like all races done before the 1973 oil crisis, the stock cars were considered to be the same vehicles that the drivers drove to the racetrack in. Homologation rules would remain strict until approximately 1975 when the NASCAR teams would abandon the Detroit factories and set up their own race car factories in the South Carolina area.
The race was decided in a time of one hour and forty minutes. Bobby Allison was declared the race winner. There were two cautions (for ten laps) and 3,200 people attended this 300 lap (118.5 miles) race. Speeds approached 69.584 miles per hour (111.985 km/h) as the average and 78.239 miles per hour (125.913 km/h) for the pole position speed. The margin of victory was only one hundred yards (the equivalent of a football field as used by the National Football League). Other top participants were Benny Parsons (with his first career pole position), Pete Hamilton, John Sears, James Hylton, Neil Castles, Elmo Langley, J.D. McDuffie, Frank Warren, and Jabe Thomas. Out of the thirty drivers who competed at the start, only twenty managed to complete the race. The top prize of the race was $1,635 ($10,083.20 when adjusted for inflation) and the prize for thirtieth place was $200 ($1,233.42 when adjusted for inflation). Total winnings were considered to be $10,015 ($61,763.46 when adjusted for inflation). Benny Parsons and Bobby Allison were constantly competing for the lead in parts of the race. Most of the vehicles that failed to finish the race were due to problems in their engine.
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